proper pronunciation of a word beginning with "r" requires the lips to be softly rounded. Not so with "L"

AN 'l' doesn't require the rongue to touch the top of your mouth.

Some think
reft and light
can not be confused
what an ellol

(Original in German by Ernst Jandl)
http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/pommeren/Buchstabendreher/lechts.html

>> ^smibbo:
proper pronunciation of a word beginning with "r" requires the lips to be softly rounded. Not so with "L"


<Pirate> arrh! </Pirate>

Pirates excepted.

Well, the teeth work fine as a substitute for touching the roof of the mouth, but still, any initial L requires blocking airflow over the middle-front of your tongue. Some dialects get lazy with final Ls and let them drag on without a crisp ending as if it was an extra kind of vowel. But Rs never involve blocking the airflow over the center of your tongue.

I get frustrated because at both universities I've attended, every day is like Zero Wing. Even the professors who've been in the USA long enough to get tenure still have incomprehensible accents and strange syntax.

It's actually a little more complicated than that.