Suzu

Native English speakers don't, no. Because the English R and L sounds are actually really distinct when formed properly (and when your ear is tuned to them from childhood!). The mouth forms them very differently. For an English L, the tip of the tongue flicks off the roof of the mouth near the teeth. For an English R, the tip of the tongue never touches the roof of the mouth, but instead the *sides* of the tongue are brought up to touch the insides of the upper teeth, while the middle (and tip) stay down and air passes through the tunnel made. For those who've had to hear it their whole life, it's very distinct. The mouth does make a shape a little like the "R" when making an "L" sound after vowels in certain words, like "actually," I think, but it still finishes with the tip-flick.

But hey, the Japanese R is hard for English speakers too! ;) I know that I don't hear it right, and so must not pronounce is right. Depending on the the word, I always hear it a little bit like an 'L' or a little bit like an 'R', which makes me think I must be putting my English thoughts onto it instead of actually hearing it the way it's said. I also get sometimes (not often) get confused by voiced and unvoiced moras, like　た and だ, but usually only the first time I hear a word.

There are a lot of English sounds that do get confused, though, especially since English sounds change depending on the sounds around them. My name is 'Drew', and kids (around 10 years or younger) have often tried to spell my name with a 'J' because of how the D changes there ;) In fact, even now, a lot of times I'll introduce myself and people will ask, "Joe?" or something, and I'll have to correct them by saying my full name, "Andrew."

If only we could tell all the sounds apart instinctively!

- Andrew

As far as Indians are concerned there is very rare chance to make such mistake. Indian languages are rich in phonetics and each sound is very distinct from other, so its quite rare people make mistake in recognizing sound.

But Indians make some other type of mistake in reading or pronouncing English. Most of the Indian languages unlike English are read as they are written. For example in English "put" and "but" have different pronunciation for 'u'. But in Hindi or most Inidian languages writing is very strict. So people try to read as per English the pronunciation rules, and get confused when there are exceptions, and English has so many of them...!!!

QuackingShoe and munna, thank you for your very interesting comments! I never thought D and J could be confusing in any case or Japanese R is hard for native English speakers. That was really new finding to me. Now I guess R and L issue is only between Japanese... oh different English pronunciations are confusing to Japanese too as all hiragana and katakana has only 1 pronunciation. I wonder how native English speakers find out the pronunciation when they see an unfamilar word... :O

I think the D and J thing is a little weird to, but on the other hand, doesn't Japanese spell 'radio,' 'rajio'? Maybe Japanese took it from a different language, but I always just figured it showed how those sounds could be similar ;)

As for figuring out unfamiliar words, sometimes it's easy with enough experience, and sometimes you just get it wrong XD. But, that's not too different from Japanese, where if you see a Kanji you've never seen before you have no way to know hot to say it or what it means at all!

Also, it's not too fair to say that hiragana and katakan have only 1 pronunciation ^^. It's usually true, but they do change sometimes, right? I can't type in Hiragana at the moment, but for example 'n' gets more of an 'm' sound sometimes, sometimes a bit of an 'ng' sound, and it can change things with certain vowels, right? And a lot of words that end with 'su' or 'chi' or 'shi' will leave off the vowel sound and just sound like "des,' 'tach,' 'watash,' right? It's not much, but ;) More important, the differences in pitch have to be memorized for every word. The way a word is written doesn't show pitch at all XD
So, it's not that different, I think ;)

I agree with QuackingShoe up to great extent, that in Japanese kana system too there are some exceptions. But its very difficult to embed the pitch and tone of pronunciation of a sound into writing system.

Like in colloquial Hindi, the change in tone and pitch of particular word in sentence changes the meaning making it a statement, question, exclamation etc.

Every language has its own beauty, and is worth speaking. If it would be not good to be speak or learn it would have been extinct. Moreover the language evolves, not designed. Every language is man made thing, as all other man made things it too has some flaws, but thats where the beauty lies....