"L" and "D"

[Saiyan]

I've had this confusion for a while and need to clear it.

1) There's no "l" sound in Japanese,right? It is written as "r". But do the Japanese pronounce the "l" or not?

2) Is there a similar rule for "D". I mean, in the newbie lesson, "Sakura" was pronounced as "Sakuda". Any rules here too?

Please explain.

ありガットございます！

[Belton]

There isn't an 'L" row in Japanese.
If the Japanese need to transliterate an L sound they usually use the R row.
eg RONDON for London.
Even then I'd advise you find a recording of the R row. ra, ri, ru, re, ro and emulate those sounds. There are so my variations of R in English due to regional accents and explaining it in text is difficult.

I'm not sure what you mean by the the second comment about "D"
the T row changes to D when accented with a double dot.
with ちchi becoming ぢji and つtsu becoming づdu (it's easier using kana)

The R row doesn't take an accent.

http://www.thejapanesepage.com/beginner ... ana/sounds
This has a clear recording by a Japanese woman.
(however り is mistyped on their chart)

http://www.apa-apa.net/~aiueaoi/
This is fun but with children's voices and no accented characters.

[Javizy]

If you softly pronounce a D, you basically have the Japanese R sound, so I'm guessing you simply confused Sakura for Sakuda, because it's never pronounced like that. Listen carefully to the stuff Belton recommended, and go back to that newbie lesson with this in mind.

[Psy]

I believe the phonetic term for this is the "alveolar flap," achieved by simply flicking your tongue up to your alveolar ridge (lump behind the teeth). When you do this properly you'll notice a distinct, pseudo-trill kind of sound. There is no equivalent to this in English, so while you can compare it to a soft D or an R or an L (and granted they can sound very similar), the actual sound is different, so try not to equate them.

At any rate, don't be afraid of looking/sounding like a goof for a few minutes. Listen to recordings of the sound, play around with a flicking motion and you'll get it. It's a lot easier than learning the full trill.