How do you pronounce the consonant ㄹ[rieul] (r/l)? In Korean, the “l” and “r” sounds come from the same underlying consonant ㄹ. If you put your tongue in between making an “l” and making an “r,” you're almost there.
The light tap is often perceived as an R by other speakers, and this is why it seems like the R's and L's are confused (even though it's not the English R). When Korean speakers hear the R in English, they often categorize it as L, which makes it really hard for them to distinguish between the two.
The pronunciation of the Korean alphabets ㅋ, ㄱ, and ㄲ can be complicated for a lot of Korean language learners. These three letters look similar and can sound similar. However, each letter has a distinct sound. Below is a video that will teach you how to pronounce the Korean alphabets ㅋ, ㄱ, and ㄲ.
Since this is a meaning distinguishing sound, it would make [r] and [l] phonemes in Korean, but all online resources I could find on Korean phonology say that they are allophones.
It is generally known that there is just one liquid phoneme in Korean since the language makes no distinction between /l/ and /r/.
Example: [l] and [ɫ] are allophones of the English phoneme /L/. (b) Speakers of that language ignore the difference between the sounds, and often have a hard time perceiving the contrast, even when it's brought to their attention.
A common struggle that Koreans have with pronunciation is with the L and R sounds. This is because they use ㄹ, which is somewhere between L and R. When writing down English words using Korean characters, this letter is used for both L and R, making Koreans accustomed to using this sound to replace both letters.
Sounds such as /f/, /v/, “th” (voiceless, as in “bath”), “th” (voiced, as in “bathe”), /z/, “sh”, “ch”, “zh” (as in “measure” or “vision”), “j” and “r” don't exist in Korean. /b, d/ and /g/ are often unvoiced. Korean consonants are distinguished by the degree of tensity and aspiration.
So you probably know that Japanese doesn't have the /l/ sound like in English but I would to give another example: Vietnamese. In some parts of the northern dialect of Vietnamese they can't differentiate between the consonants /l/ and /n/.
Some sounds are not in their language
In some cultures and often Asian cultures the sounds around them are so completely different to the English sounds, the people's tongues literally grow comfortable in a certain way and it is very difficult to retrain it any other way.
The Japanese sound is more of a cross between the English R and L, so it's very difficult to distinguish the two, hence Engrish. A proper hard R is actually just as difficult to pronounce as an L for Japanese speakers, and the hardest words to pronounce are those with both sounds (for example, parallel).
The Asian “R” becomes an “L” simply by touching the palate with the tongue. That's why L and R sound so similar to our Western ears – because they are very similar.
“R” is a definitely hard pronunciation for Koreans. But, we have a similar sound “ㄹ.” Even though English language doesn't have the exact same pronunciation as “ㄹ” I would say “L” corresponds to double “ㄹ” in Korean.
As noted above, initial ⫽l⫽ is silent in this palatalizing environment, at least in South Korea.
Why don't the Japanese pronounce the "L"? Because they don't have an L sound in their language. They have a similar sound, a tapped R, [ɾ], which is kinda halfway between an English R and L. Same tapped R as in spanish.
Actually, there are no F or V sounds in Korean. In fact, there's no difference between P and F or B and V. Therefore, the P and F sounds are both pronounced as ㅍ[pieup] and B and V as ㅂ[bieup].
Korean does not have /r/ and /l/ sounds. They have another sound, ㄹ, which seems to fall somewhere between /r/ and /l/.
Notice that several English sounds are missing from the Japanese language entirely: "c," "f," "l," "q," "v," and "x." When Japanese want to represent these sounds, they have to use Japanese syllables that sound almost the same.
Lambdacism (from the Greek letter λ) is the difficulty in pronouncing l and similar sounds.
What makes the dark [ɫ] different from the clear [l] is an extra raising of the tongue body to the same position it has for a high back vowel. So, essentially dark [ɫ] is just a clear [l] pronounced simultaneously with a velar approximant [ɰ] -- just like [w] is really lip-rounding with a simultaneous [ɰ].
This pronunciation of L is called “clear L.” When L precedes a consonant or occurs at the end of a word, as in the words “fool” and “ball,” an additional movement is made with the back of the tongue, which is raised towards the velum. This pronunciation of L is called “dark L”.