Abstract
Voiced obstruents are sounds that are produced with complete closure of the vocal tract and vibration of vocal folds (e.g., /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/). They have been shown to be associated with largeness by native Japanese speakers using Pok\'emon-style nonce names, but whether this sensitivity extends to second-language (L2) learners remains unclear. Twenty-five L2 learners of Japanese rated 30 nonce names with fixed mora counts, containing zero, one, or two voiced obstruents, for perceived height and perceived weight on a sliding scale. Ratings increased with each additional voiced obstruent for both height and weight, and the same pattern was reported for native speakers. This sensitivity did not differ by Japanese proficiency or between English-Japanese bilingual andmultilingual learners.