Hello, everyone!
I’m glad there are some non-native Japanese speakers who feel our ラ行音 is not “l” or “r”.
I’m not a language expert, but I agree that ラ行音 does not belong to “l” or “r”. In my personal opinion, those three kinds of sound are just different, even though they share some similarity. Depending on how you grew up with those sounds, you perceive them differently. I believe that the same thing is true for any sound, but ラ行音 is most noticeable because many high-profile languages have two different sounds represented by two different, crystal-clear single letters (“l” and “r”), as possible counterparts.
What I feel is that those three sounds can visually be shown as three partially overlapped circles, kind of like the five circles of the Olympic rings.
I don’t even believe that your “l/r” sound is exactly the same as your neighbor’s “l/r” sound. I’ve recently found out that the English word “title” is spelled as “titre” in French. (I don’t know how French speakers pronounce it, though.) Also, I think I can tell a Spanish speaker from an English speaker if they say a word with “r” such as “burrito”, mainly because they pronounce “r” in their own characteristic ways. The boundaries of the sounds vary with each language, culture, group of people, and ultimately, person.
I see the similarity between ラ行音 and the “t/d” sound as well. I know some people who sound more like they are saying ～してくらさい instead of the right pronunciation ～してください. Regarding “t”, I notice that native English speakers sometimes spell out り as “te”. It sure is close to the American soft “t” sound.
ゲロッパ！
