and almost lost my mind trying to get kids to express the "th" sound. They were solidly convinced it was impossible, despite video examples I would show to them. Imagine ten people staring at someone's mouth while he presses the edge of his tongue against his upper front teeth, going "thhhhhhhhh," then flicking the tip of the tongue to say "th! th! th! th!" without spitting...
When adapting English words, Japanese substitute the closest syllable, but it's hardly uniform. " (Th)is" becomes " (su)isu" (which is also "Swiss" ). " (Th)ree" becomes " (su)rii." But " (th)e" becomes "za." As in ZA WARUDO.
Not that we get it right all the time: A character in an episode of Futurama calls Challenger Bender "Charen(jaru) Ben(daru) " but in legit Japanese, it would be "Charen(jaa) Ben(daa). "
Japanese doesn't have a solid "R" or "L" pronunciation as English speakers know it; they have something in between the two (usually written in English as "r," as seen in my examples above). To someone not used to this, the difference in the pronunciation stands out, which led to the racist stereotype of Asians reversing "R"s and "L"s. Even in the OP video, when Mrs. Eats says "collect" I hear "correct."
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