Why is it that straight people can't say faggot, white people can't say nigger, and Japanese people can't say their R's?

I attempted to solve the latter part of the puzzle last night, but it remains a quandary to which I can offer no answer, even after 2 hours of practicing "Lice" and "Rice", "Wrong" and "Long" and "Lung" and "Rung" with Hiro. Long, Wrong, Long, Wrong, Long, Wrong. I haven't a clue what you are saying, Hiro.

"Put your tongue up against your teeth, your upper teeth. Now say, luh, luh, long!"

"Ruh, ruh wrong."

"No, luh, luh long!"

"Ruh, ruh, wrong."

We practice every variation of tongue arrangement imaginable, but were unable to produce any consistent results that could help Hiro with the R and the L, the most challenging facet of the English language. Hiro pulled his face and stretched his cheeks, he clicked his tongue and rolled his R's deep in his throat, but after putting a short sentence together the sound came out, well, wrong. Impossible.

Hiro gave up for the evening, but decided to challenge me with some similar linguistic difficulties contained in the Japanese language.

"Hashi" is both chopsticks and bridge. "Ame" is candy and rain. "Su" is vinegar, but also a bird's nest. Only slight variations exist in the pronunciation of the words, but, as with any language, poor enunciation can be compensated through proper context.

The most interesting pseudo-homonym in Japanese, though, is the strange pairing of prisoner and husband, both pronounced so similarly that it can't be a coincidence; nothing in Japan is a coincidence.

Every kanji has a meaning, and every word is made of multiple kanji, revealing the ancient origins or the word--for example: keitai, or cellphone, is a combination of the character for "to carry with" and "sword slung on the hip." It's practical. It makes sense.

So what can we learn from the similarity of prisoner and husband? Hiro couldn't explain it to me, but I'm certain the correlation isn't simply superficial.