kanji koohii FORUM
Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Printable Version

+- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com)
+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: General discussion (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-8.html)
+--- Thread: Pronunciation assessment anyone? (/thread-2693.html)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - mentat_kgs - 2009-03-06

Whow, which karaoke site?

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Nukemarine - 2009-03-06

mentat_kgs Wrote:Whow, which karaoke site?
http://www.redkaraoke.com which also has Japanese songs (about 15,000) in addition to other type of songs. Has flash recording for voice and video too.

Just click on the Japan flag at the top to get the Japanese site jp.redkaraoke.com

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - albion - 2009-03-06

nac_est Wrote:PS.
I was simply looking for Japanese users on snapvine and look what I've found: here. It's that exact Haruhi passage, and it was posted like 4 hours ago... could it be a coincidence?
That's from someone I know on Lang8. I decided to post this there for comments afterwards, and she recorded that. I didn't know you could search for things on Snapvine. Might have reconsidered if I knew you could do that before hand 　（´д｀）；

Quote:I notices just a few things, like 超能力 being pronounced as ちょうんのうりょく with a double n, and ぶっ飛んだ pronounced like ぶ飛んだ. But generally, it sounded cool!
One of the comments I got was about that, more specifically how it should be ちょうのうりょく (following on) rather than the ちょう・のうりょくしゃ I said. Listening back to it today, that bit (超能力者がいたら) sounded a bit off. I hadn't noticed that before (nor how slow I sounded, but I think that's how I always sound anyway Tongue)

For reference, what problems that were mentioned:
- ちょうのうりょくしゃ thing
- Second こ sound in 「こころ」 was short
- The っ sound in 「ぶっとんだ」 was short
- The second ん in 「しんけん」 was short
- Accent on 「以上」 might have been a bit "方言っぽい"

Trying to record some stuff now and listening to it, I do notice that I tend to make a number of short sounds (short か in 「若さ」 and such). I keep meaning to work on my speaking, but I keep putting it off as well.

I'm not/never have been an actor, but I sometimes practice reading out aloud (fluently, without stopping all the time) by speaking lines from books, manga, (unvoiced) video games. When no one is around to hear the voices I give the characters, anyway Tongue

I don't think I can pick up subtle things like accents, and I wouldn't put faith in my judgements on them anyway, but to try to give comments:

@capital
- 表現 sounded like ほうげん
- 旅行したら sounds a bit off (too strong on the し?)
- ちょっとだけ sounded like ちょうど

@alantin
- 朱雀（しゅじゃく?）　＝　すざく
- 転生（てんしょう）　＝　てんせい
- The ふ in 再び sounded too strong
- 魔神（ましん）　＝　まじん
- 必要 sounded like ひっちょう

I don't think most of those really count, since they're just different ways to read them. But those are the versions I've seen more often.

@nac_est
- 描く sounded kind of like がく

I don't know how much of that was just my mishearing, though. Or just mistakes speaking. Another thing I noticed about myself is occasionally saying something wrong/completely different to what I intended to.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - yukamina - 2009-03-06

I didn't think I had anything to record my voice on, but apparently my mp3 player does a pretty good job. But man, it's embarrassing to hear my own voice outside my head. I sound like a child.

But it's cool to see how you guys are all doing.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-06

sup everybody. I came across with a link to this post on other forum, and found it interesting so I registered. Here is my first post, an opinion from a Japanese native.

I think many of you guys got your pronunciation dialed almost perfectly. The truth is, we are "pronunciation deaf". We are the people who can't tell the difference between right and light, or hat and hut, so what can we say? We can't recognize subtle deviation anyway Wink

We are, however, SUPER picky on tone and rhythm, because pronouncing a word with wrong tone or rhythm could change the meaning of the word completely.

It's kind of like playing sheet music with a piano. Every sound element(五十音) needs to be pronounced with correct tone for appropriate length of time.

For example, in standard Japanese(標準語), 三姉妹（さんしまい）HAVE TO go like

　んし
さ　　ま
　　　　い

The second「ん」is equal to or higher than the first 「さ」, and「し」must be the same height as「ん」,「ま」have to be lower than 「し」, and「い」should finish off the word at lower than 「ま」. And each character should be pronounced for equal amount of time.

Every other Japanese word also has "correct" tone associated with it and if you could remember them and get this tone and rhythm thing dialed, I think a lot of you could pass as Japanese, pronunciation wise. The tone and rhythm HAVE TO be correct. I think the rule there is much more strict in Japanese than it is in English.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Paludis - 2009-03-07

Here's mine, from the light novel とらドラ！

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d9bf9b9c0ad511deb9860030485b0e2a?user=41ee6b320ad411deb49e0030485c72b4

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Nuriko - 2009-03-07

Snallygaster,
As for me I've done some shadowing (separate sentences) but lately I've been wanting to shadow paragraphs of stuff, especially literature. I'm finding that even how sentences connect is important. I've never had a Japanese teacher so I've never worked on pronunciation with one. My language exchange partner has helped me a lot on pronunciation though.

captal,
I'm not sure if it makes sense, but your voice alone sounds very Japanese. Anyone else get what I mean? Maybe it's also how you sound dramatic/poetic in the same way Japanese are? Also, your voice is pleasant as well and you seem like you really know your stuff when it comes to grammar and word usage and stuff like that. I was extremely impressed! Anyway, on with the advice! What stands out the most, I think, is how pauses sound a little unnatural. For example "頑張ってという 言葉を覚えたら." Actually, to me it sounds like it should just flow and have no pauses, you know? Also: "特有な表現だ." It sounds like there is emphasis that shouldn't there (especially on "na"), while I think Japanese speakers would just almost flat-line it. I made similar mistakes I think. Whenever I've gotten advice from Japanese people, the most important point seems to be to stay almost as monotone as you can. Sometimes I'm afraid if I take this advice too seriously I'll sound too much like a robot by the time I get to Japan though (my friend actually told me to sound like a robot though). Anyway, I am impressed and can tell you've had a lot of practice. As for what may need work, tons of listening and shadowing will always work things out the more active you are. Reading your speech, I was able to mentally refer to a line with a similar speech pattern and realize the difference between your pronunciation and the actor's pronunciation. Maybe that shows just how important tons and tons of listening is. Shadowing, I think, will get you to the point of being able to flow through sentences like a native. Even listening alone will do that I believe.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Paludis - 2009-03-07

masaman Wrote:Every other Japanese word also has "correct" tone associated with it and if you could remember them and get this tone and rhythm thing dialed, I think a lot of you could pass as Japanese, pronunciation wise. The tone and rhythm HAVE TO be correct. I think the rule there is much more strict in Japanese than it is in English.
I wonder if you pick this up naturally as you hear and speak more and more Japanese.. Coz I really don't want to have to learn the right tones for every single word in the language >.<

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Nuriko - 2009-03-07

alantin, I'm impressed with your reading ability, especially with unfamiliar material. Here are the small mistakes: 転生＝てんせい、四神天地書＝しじんてんちしょ. The second one is especially a small mistake because you'll probably only find it in stuff that concerns the series ふしぎ遊戯。
On with the real stuff. You seem to have the monotone thing down. It turns out albion corrected all the stuff I noticed already Tongue Also, particles and words seemed to be more "separated" than they need to be, and sound like they should flow a little more, especially around "が現れた" for example. But who knows, maybe a native wouldn't have a problem with it. Anyway don't take my advice too seriously （汗）You did a dang good job I'd say.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Paludis
You've got pretty good rhythm going. And your pronunciation is pretty much perfect. I can 100% understand what you are saying and you are really fluent. There are some places I think you can pass as a Japanese, like your だからこそ is perfect.

If you want to improve even further though, I think tone is the key. Here is mine.
http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90223.mp3

Notice MY pronunciation, native's pronunciation, is a little wacky here and there too? but that doesn't matter. It's mostly the tone and rhythm we care about.

And sorry, no. There is no easy way. Even Japanese people from country side spend a couple of years adjusting their "tones" when they move to Tokyo. You need to remember them. It's like desert and dessert. They mean different things if you change the accent.

And, I am going through living hell practicing all the different pronunciations in English, and you have an unfair advantage, so you at least need to suffer in some areas Wink

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Nuriko - 2009-03-07

nac_est, you're really good! You got some speed too! Comparing with the original, I think you're on it pretty much, with the exception of: I didn't hear "を" before"淡々" (maybe it blended in too much with 日常 though), 描くdid sound like がく、and 明るくsounded kind of like あくるく。But for us to have to point out small details like this instead of bigger "overall" ones, you're doing a really good job. Also, did you shadow this a lot beforehand? Wink

Which actually gave me an idea! Here's what I did:
1. Recorded me saying this without having heard the original (youtube video version), nor listening to nac_est's version more than three times.
2. Listened to to the youtube video version, recorded it in sections, put them each in the SRS, shadowed them like crazy...
3. Recorded myself saying it in its entirety once again.

I was curious about how close I was to the original. Man did I cringe when I listened to my original one. Here are the recordings:
Before shadowing: http://www.snapvine.com/bp/TyeNVgreEd6uTwAwSFxytA
After shadowing: http://www.snapvine.com/bp/ZLyRjgreEd60ngAwSFxytA

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Paludis - 2009-03-07

masaman Wrote:Paludis
You've got pretty good rhythm going. And your pronunciation is pretty much perfect. I can 100% understand what you are saying and you are really fluent. There are some places I think you can pass as a Japanese, like your だからこそ is perfect.

If you want to improve even further though, I think tone is the key. Here is mine.
http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90223.mp3
Thank you very much for the comments, and for your recording as well. That is extremely helpful =)

I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and work on my tones. You've got me motivated me now!

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Nuriko
Your voice is really pleasant and makes me be ashamed of my voice.

I can totally see you improved after "shadowing". The rhythm and tone on the first one is off and it's hard to understand what you are saying, but the second one is greatly improved. I can't believe you've never talked to anybody in Japanese.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Nuriko - 2009-03-07

LordGolem, you actually have a really nice voice I'd say and really good Japanese reading ability too. Aside from 以上 having the incorrect accent, no pronunciation problems jumped out at me. What I really noticed though is vocal volume changes throughout your recording (one of the many super Japanese-girlfriends pointed this out in my recording as well.) It's hard to get rid that volume change thing!

nukemarine, I noticed a lot of words with the opposite accent. For example, 歌：you said Uta instead of uTA, 医者：Isha instead of iSHA. I was impressed, you could say 料理 exactly right (that's my impression, not sure about natives though). 食べました sounded like "たべたました／たべてました" though, unless I just heard wrong.

A few months ago my friend (Japanese-English language exchange partner) pointed out to me how I was making the same mistakes, which made me extremely frustrated to know I would have to learn pronunciation on a word-to-word basis kind of thing (although tons of listening does kind of take care of this to an extent). I had hoped for some kind of pillsbury precut cookie dough version of the Japanese language, but then I learned there's a difference because how you say 箸 and 橋 among others, and short two syllable words like 歌, 糊, 株 could go either way and the only way to find out which way it's pronounced is to hear it or look at the accent number in its dictionary entry (and only some dictionaries include this). Disheartening as all hell. iKnow helps a lot with that though.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Paludis Wrote:I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and work on my tones. You've got me motivated me now!
There you go! It's almost a crime that dictionaries don't show you the correct tones (or do they? I'm not sure...) when it is crucial for speaking Japanese fluently.

and I meant "you need to memorize", not "you need to remember"... It's taking me forever to learn English and I need motivation from you guys too.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Nuriko - 2009-03-07

Paludis and masaman, I don't know whether I'm just lazy or tired to listen for errors, wait, no, you guys are just too good. I only listened once, but I felt like I was listening to Japanese guys. おまけに声優さんみたい！...(鼻血) I appreciate a fine manly voice.

edit: thanks masaman for giving me your opinion of my shadowing experiment Smile

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Nuriko, I am a Japanese guy. I was born in Shinnjyuku and grew up in Tokyo area. I moved to the UK when I was 18 then to the states when I was 24. So you can count on my Japanese. It's the only language I can speak without an accent.

And you sound a whole lot more pleasant to the majority of Japanese than I do, trust me Wink

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Smackle - 2009-03-07

masaman Wrote:
Paludis Wrote:I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and work on my tones. You've got me motivated me now!
There you go! It's almost a crime that dictionaries don't show you the correct tones (or do they? I'm not sure...) when it is crucial for speaking Japanese fluently.
I think they do, but it is a little confusing
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E8%A6%8B%E3%81%9B%E3%82%8B&enc=UTF-8&stype=1&dtype=0&dname=0ss
The 2 by 見せる I think indicates that pitch rises on せ

http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E8%80%83%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B&enc=UTF-8&stype=1&dtype=0&dname=0ss
考える has a 43 which makes me think it means か↑ん↑が↓え↓る

I could be really wrong. I do not know.

In any case, there are things like 新明解日本語アクセント辞典 you can buy to help you.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Smackle Wrote:it is a little confusing
It IS confusing. I don't think they are doing good job showing the correct tones. It's kind of like

　せ

み　
　　　
　　　る

and


　んが
か　　え

　　　　る


in　標準語.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Of course, I've never bought an アクセント辞典, so that sure could be different.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Nuriko - 2009-03-07

masaman Wrote:Nuriko, I am a Japanese guy. I was born in Shinnjyuku and grew up in Tokyo area. I moved to the UK when I was 18 then to the states when I was 24. So you can count on my Japanese. It's the only language I can speak without an accent.

And you sound a whole lot more pleasant to the majority of Japanese than I do, trust me Wink
Oh ok then, no wonder you speak it so well! Sorry I didn't catch on from the beginning Smile Judging by how you write (/type), you sound like you're fluent in English too (I never would have guessed that English is not your native language). How many years have you been here?
とにかく励ましてくれてありがとう！

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - activeaero - 2009-03-07

Wow you guys sound great to my newb ears and thank you Masa for the native input.

Pronunciation is definitely my biggest fear. I was born and raised for 90% of my life in the Alabama country side, near the Mobile area (yes as in Forrest Gump,), and have a STRONG southern accent when I'm not actively trying to hide it. Cramming lots of syllables together in rapid succession is just not something my mouth has much practice at lol.

I'm only 600 cards into the sentence method but here I am reading some random, yet typical BS beginner phrases.

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/e6d8370c0aea11deb47e0030485c71be?user=c956223c0a2411deb47e0030485c71be


*hides in the corner*

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - Jarvik7 - 2009-03-07

masaman Wrote:
Paludis Wrote:I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and work on my tones. You've got me motivated me now!
There you go! It's almost a crime that dictionaries don't show you the correct tones (or do they? I'm not sure...) when it is crucial for speaking Japanese fluently.
Most don't show them because it is largely insignificant "for speaking Japanese fluently" (speaking with no accent isn't the same as being fluent). Every dialect has major differences in pitch compared to 標準語 and yet remain intelligible to people from other regions. They are of essentially no use to Japanese dictionary users, since they already speak in their own dialect. If they want to sound like a newscaster then they'd pick up a copy of NHK's accent dictionary.

I've seen some textbooks and learner J-E dictionaries that have pitch guides, but I think it's largely a waste of a beginning student's time. They're better off building vocab & grammar & comprehension skills first. Every person I've seen trying to use the guides just ended up horribly exaggerating the pronunciation anyways.

(...and Japanese is not a tonal language, it has pitch accent)

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Nuriko Wrote:I never would have guessed that English is not your native language
You made my daySmile I've been in UK and US for 15 years though, so I'd better be somewhat good... Anyway, I am not being nice to you or anything. you do sound pretty good. If you've said


　れは　しょーせつの
こ

instead of

　　　しょ
　　　　　う
　れは　　　せ
こ　　　　　　つ
　　　　　　　　の

the first part of your recording,これは小説のあらすじ, would have been pretty much perfect and I would have thought you were Japanese at that point.

Overall,「ん」seems to be a little hassle for you but I really don't hear many pronunciation mistakes. There are about 20 tonal and/or rhythmical mistakes in your recording and if you straighten these out, you'll sound pretty much like a native Japanese. Ether way, your Japanese is outstanding for a person who've never used it in the real life. Incredible.

Jeez It's one o'clock here. Nice too meet you everyone, see you tomorrow.

Pronunciation assessment anyone? - masaman - 2009-03-07

Jarvik7 Wrote:Japanese is not a tonal language, it has pitch accent
Sorry, I've never even talked about Japanese language in English before, so my terminology must be off, but you get what I mean. It's true that dialects have different pitch/tone, but I only speak 標準語 and 東京弁 and have hard time understanding some of the dialects like 九州弁 and 東北弁. I don't understand 30% of what they say if they use hardcore dialects.

man, it's 1:20, I really need to sleep. See ya!