Comment on The Chinese Lingerie Venders of EgyptparentComments−desdiv11yEspecially considering that Mandarin Chinese differentiates between R and L sounds; Japanese is the one that doesn't[0].[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_...−jpatokal11yThe immigrants in the story are from Zhejiang, so they likely natively speak a Wu dialect that does indeed not have an /r/ sound:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_dialect#PhonologyAnd even the sound we write "r" when romanizing Mandarin is pretty distant from an Arabic /r/ (ر).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Initials−desdiv11yThank you for the correction. I stand corrected.−westiseast11yStandardized mandarin differentiates, but a lot of people don't speak very standard mandarin, and R and L become confused. The R is also not exactly the same as an English R - it's somewhere in the middle of R, L and a bit of a Zzz.
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Especially considering that Mandarin Chinese differentiates between R and L sounds; Japanese is the one that doesn't[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_...
The immigrants in the story are from Zhejiang, so they likely natively speak a Wu dialect that does indeed not have an /r/ sound:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_dialect#Phonology
And even the sound we write "r" when romanizing Mandarin is pretty distant from an Arabic /r/ (ر).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Initials
Thank you for the correction. I stand corrected.
Standardized mandarin differentiates, but a lot of people don't speak very standard mandarin, and R and L become confused. The R is also not exactly the same as an English R - it's somewhere in the middle of R, L and a bit of a Zzz.