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> Compare the Japanese with the difficulty of 'l' vs 'r'.

This comparison is not apt. Japanese has neither l nor r; the sound commonly transliterated as "r" is a different sound.

It is a sound that lies between the two liquids in English. The words "flesh" and "fresh" sound the same t0 the ear that doesn't hear them.

By way of http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/112384/do-all-native-...

> However, even before their first birthdays, babies begin to lose the ability to hear the distinctions among phonemes in languages other than their own.

From http://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacs-tra...

If you ask any young person in Seoul, their pronounciation is identical.
Even native speakers can't always tell a difference anymore :).