In my experience, the japanese 'r' sound is nearly identical to
the (castillian/american) spanish 'r'.  More of a trill than any english
sount in particular.

As I've said, how you hear the japanese 'r' (J-R) depends on what
linguistic knowlege you have. HTG percieves the J-R as a spanish 'r' (S-R)
because in studying spanish, he knows that the S-R is distinct from the
english 'r' and 'l' (E-R/E-L). The J-R is more similar to the S-R than it
is to E-R and E-L, so that is what he percieves.

J-R, S-R, E-R, and E-L each are different phonemes, each with its own
distinct qualities, but only E-R and E-L are distinguished in English.
Since our brains are lazy, our grammars do not recognize any quality that
are redundant in separating E-R from E-L.

However, each person's grammar is different. HTG has a different grammar
that discriminates E-L and E-R from S-R because he has learned spanish.
Since J-R is more similar to S-R than it is to E-L and E-R, he therefore
percieves J-R as S-R. On the reverse side, the Japanese speaker would
interpret all three of these sounds as J-R.

Example: One of the chinese gymnists in the Olympics has the name "Li Xiao
Shuang". In Chinese, "X" and "SH" are both similar to Enghish SH, but not
the same, and are recognized in Chinese as two different consonants.
However, the English speaking announcers invariable pronounce both
consonants as an English SH, because that is how they percieve them.

It's all in perception.

-wyrm(AKA Tom Jefferys; Time Lord for Hire, "Have TARDIS; Will Travel.")
* wyrm@mail.utexas.edu
* JEFFERYSTR@rascal.guilford.edu
Member of the Apathy for Shampoo Society (AFSS)
Kawaii Thing of the First Order, Martin
Sigs: Wyrm-chan, H-Wyrm, Ten, Chibi-Usa

"I want you to know that I've always had the greatest respect for the law."
*SOCK!*
-Cmdr. William Riker