I just happened to wonder how people speaking different native languages feel about pronouncing Japanese. Is it close to your own language? what's hard and what's easy? Stuff like that.

When i started studying Japanese as a native Finnish speaker I could just start reading romaji and I got it mostly right. Just omit the "u"s in the ends of the words and "i"s in し in the middle of the words.

The hard things were to learn to correctly pronounce ち and じ, そ and　ぞ, etc. (At first they sounded the same.)

Otherwise there is nothing to it, pronouncing *and stressing* English right is much harder!


So, how do you native English speakers hear Japanese and how much did you have study the pronunciation?

alantin Wrote:When i started studying Japanese as a native Finnish speaker I could just start reading romaji and I got it mostly right. Just omit the "u"s in the ends of the words and "i"s in し in the middle of the words.

It's probably not a good idea to keep those as rules of thumb. SOMETIMES those effects happen, but it's hardly every time. For a quick easy example of spoken Japanese: "iku?" would not be pronounced "ik"

I never found Japanese pronunciation hard at all to produce or understand. Most of the phonemes are the same or similar to English. Growing up in eastern Canada I had to learn French as a second language from kindergarten, so I guess I got accustomed to articulating sounds in different ways. The r flap and velar n are probably the ones most foreigners have problems with.

Well.. That was a quick example (Obviously not very good one.. >_<) conjured from one elementary phrase:

始めまして。　私はアランチィンです。　どうそ宜しくお願いします。

That was the first one to come to mind.

Not my pronunciation rules.


Anyway!
Thanks for the reply!

There seems to be a lot more to pronunciation than could ever be described in a book, even for a seemingly phonetically easy language like Japanese. Based on what you have said about the "u" and "i" rules, if you simply read the hiragana, you would probably get by and be understood in Japanese. But when I watch "Heroes," even though all the Japanese speakers are saying the words correctly, there are clearly ones whose intonations, speed, emphasis, etc., are much more natural than others.

I would say the biggest crux to pronouncing foreign languages like a native is transliteration. As soon as you hear a sound in Japanese, you will think of the corresponding English (or whatever) language letters and pronounce it using them. That is why when I ask someone to repeat "wakarimasu" exactly as I say it, one second later, they already have the pronunciation wrong as sounding more like "wa-car-imas." I personally think the reason children learn pronunciation better is because they don't have all the built up preconceptions and hear the other language at face value.

In summary, the best way to pronounce something is the way you hear it, paying as much attention to exactly replicating the native speaker as possible. Wa-car-imass kaa?

No argument there. Like a friend of mine said: listen as much as possible, and when you have listened enough, it'll come out of your mouth.

But as adults we do have those preconceptions affecting us and things that are familiar from our own languages are the easiest to catch when learning a new one. I'm simply wondering what things in Japanese are unfamiliar for a f.ex. native English speaker.

I have seen those pronunciation explanations in english japanese books and I'm kinda wondering, how would an English speaker with no knowledge of Japanese, pronounce Japanese words. Listening to Japanesepod101 for a while I noticed ピーターさん (an american?) speaking Japanese in a way that sounded a bit unfamiliar to me (althought his pronunciation was really good!).
I haven't *heard* many English speakers speak Japanese.

Then again a Swedish guy had even more interesting way to pronounce!

This made me wonder..

"wa - car - imass" is a good example! Thanks!

Most of it seems pretty easy. I think I still have problems with Ryu. My tongue doesn't want to do that in one syllable. Ri-yu is what really wants to come out. Or Du. Or Dyu, maybe. It was a friends name (Ryuichi), and I really didn't want to slaughter it every time I said it (but I did anyway).

Some of it is the idea that (before we're aware) we have changed what we have heard into our own language's approximation of the phonemes. We think we heard the word "car" in there somewhere. Another thing, perhaps this happens next, we know we're not saying it the same, but our mouth just doesn't know how to make that shape or shift. We "stuck" with a mouth that doesn't speak Japanese right.

I imagine that it does come back to what you're saying "listen very carefully...hear the differences". When you have finally heard it enough times, REALLY heard it, it'll begin to start coming out of your mouth right.

That is the only cluster of sounds that I can think of (right off) that I feel is particularly hard for me to pronounce, even when I'm trying hard. A lot of my bad pronunciation is not that I can't. It's more of a laziness issue. Sometimes ga is ga, but sometimes is is nga, a softer nazalized attack. But do I shift to nga at the right times? Another is the English intonation of sentences. The japanese pitch is different, but I just speak japanese with English sentence tones.

Of course, right now, I'm more focussed on RTK than pronunciation. I love to listen to JapanesePod101, and other sources....cannot get enough of it. I'm just not working on that just now.

I'm pretty bad at pronunciation. In particular I have trouble with "ryu" and "tsu".

so i have to be careful distinguishing "tsuki" and "suki"

I'm from Sweden. My main problem is with the voiced "J" sounds. The Swedish "J" is not voiced, and sounds more like "Y" in Japanese (or "Yapanese" in Swenglish).

While I have no difficulty hearing the difference, my mouth seems more inclined to produce sounds closer to my native language.

Yeah. The じ sound is especially tricky! 何時(なんじ) becomes easily なんち!

Another nice word that I used to have a major problem with was 授業 (じゅぎょう) ! It used to become something like "つこう" !

I never thought that "ryu" could be tricky!

For me since I've seen a lot of dramas and shows, the pronunciation came very natural to me when I started learning. (my mother tongue is Filipino, though)

Some of my Filipino friends are having a hard time with the "n" sound, like okaasan ( or -san generally) I told them to treat it almost like "ng" if it's at the end of the word, and "m" if it's beside p or b. That usually helps out. "Tsu" and "Ryu" are usually difficult for them, too. The word "tsuzuku" is really troublesome for them, especially since it doesn't sound very well in Filipino (mispronounce it a little and it becomes something like "My Breast")

Pronunciation is traditionally the most underestimated component of the language study yet a very important one. Professional linguists carried out tests where the same texts containing a number of grammatical errors were recorded by several groups of people, ranging from native speakers to foreign learners with varying degrees of accent. The results clearly showed that native listeners tend not to hear many grammar mistakes when the text is recorded with excellent pronunciation. Similarly, when the same text is read with a bad pronunciation, native speakers pick out all grammar mistakes and even claim to hear additional ones.

A common strategy for learners of any language is to stop working on their pronunciation once they have attained a certain point where they are satisifed with how they pronounce things. Typically, as soon as they can make themselves comfortably understood, other aspects of the language study take priority and the accent remains forever.

Another fact is that the absolute majority of learners have no idea about phonetics and how sounds are formed (on the conscious level) and no 'good ear' that allows them to absorb the same info on the subconscious level. And no 'trained' tongue that allows them either to imitate what they hear or to produce what they have consciously know they have to produce.

Most learners (unless they have been given formal training in phonetics) do not seem to pay any attention to the fact that even the most basic sounds differ from language to language, with very few absolute equivalents. They tend to concentrate only on the 'missing sounds', such as the English [th] for the continental learners of English, or the ostensibly different sounds, such as the French [r] or the Russian [ы].

Yet the English [t] is different from the American [t] which in turn has nothing in common with the German, French, Italian or Russian [t], which are much closer but are all different amongst themselves, too. The same applies to [s], [k], [m], etc. The same applies to the vowels.

Once most learners have mastered the 'missing' or the 'ostensibly different' sounds, it is the most basic sounds - i.e., the ones they have paid NO attention to - that account for the largest part of their accent. Take any foreigner who speaks English and listen to them carefully: their [th] may be perfect but their vowels and most consonants will be all over the place - these will be the vowels and consonants of their native tongue.

(In fact, it is one of the greatest strategies for picking up the pronunciation of your target language - listen to how natives speakers of that language distort your own native tongue and learn to imitate the sounds they are making.)

Most textbooks for written for the general public (as opposed to specialised editions concentrating on phonetical issues) propagate most horrible lies for the sake of practicality and simplicity: they will tell you that the Japanese or the French [p] sounds like the English [p] in 'prawn' or some similar nonsense. Micro-differences in intensity, tone, volume, attack, lip and tongue position are IGNORED. Those learners whose own phonetic listening and imitation skills are short of excellent will NEVER pick up on those differences by their own will and as a result will always retain some accent.

Having said that, some languages are closer phonetically to each other than others. The German or the Russian base, for example, is an excellent starting point for a mastery of French or Italian, or Japanese, whereas Swedish or Dutch, for example, are disadvantaged by the lack of some properly voiced consonants.

But the most peculiar European language - phonetically - is English. It is relatively easy to find a German who speaks accentless French or Italian. Or a Flemish person who speaks accentless Russian. Yet it is very uncommon to find learners who manage to speak English without any trace of an accent as a result of their adult studies.

For exactly the same reason, it is highly uncommon to find English native speakers who manage to lose their accent completely in any other language as a result of their adult studies. This is often portrayed as lack of talent but in fact has nothing to do with it. It is just that the English base is extremely remote from that of most other languages.

This was a very lengthy theory introduction... Now back to Japanese.

I am not a native speaker of English and I have NEVER been systematically exposed to ANY foreign accents in Japanese (thank God for that). For that reason I actually have trouble understanding Japanese spoken with a foreign accent - even the most basic things make me strain my ears. And I have to say that the English accent is the most obvious one - most of the basic consonants are carbon copies of the English ones, most [sh]s are entirely out of place, most [w]s are overstated, etc., etc... Although I actually do find that English speakers are doing rather well with their [g]s and [ng]s.

By contrast, English speakers are doing a much better job overall in Mandarin Chinese, for reasons far too technical to cover in this thread.

My own Japanese is lacking in too many aspects but I don't seem to have a foreign accent in it (as tested many times in telephone conversations). I do continue working on my prosody, though, which I find still far from perfect over longer stretches of text. But then again, native or near-native proficiency in a number of European languages and the formal linguistic education allowed for a rather remarkable head start in my case...

Hmm, I didn't really have much trouble with Japanese pronunciation. I think it's pretty easy... You get used to the different ways syllables are pronounced with exposure and practice. In my Japanese class, I got quite a bit of exposure to bad accents though, lol. I don't have a native Jpn ear, so I don't know how I sound(my old marks in class indicate I have good pronunciation, though)

You know, I never thought about how similar certain sounds are, (chi/ji, t/d, k/g) were until very recently. I'm glad I don't have to learn the differences between them @_@ I couldn't grasp Chinese or Korean pronunciation, so I'm glad Japanese is so simple.

Serge, you seem to have studied Phonetics quite a bit in Linguistics. What do you suggest as a good way to improve pronunciation, specifically the little things that are harder for learners to notice and that native speakers will still understand despite of the accent. Listen, record yourself, and try to repeat? I know some people who study phonetics in linguistics sometimes end up being accent coaches, do you know how they "train" people to speak?

I currently just took my last test in gross anatomy for dental school, and I can assuredly say that as different as everyone is, we all have the exact same set of muscles in our mouths, tongue, larynx, pharynx, etc, and we all have similar ears, tympanic membranes (ear drums), nerves, etc., so the only difference between being able to pronounce and hear correct pronunciation is what is in your brain. Hopefully we all have the confidence that we can fully control our brains and get it to do what we want it to, otherwise we wouldn't have tackled the challenge of learning Japanese.

It seems like everyone here pretty much believes that concept, either inherently or logically, but I thought I would come out and say it. I am not saying that everyone should instantly be able to "hear" certain sounds. What I am saying is that the exact same sound waves are hitting and exciting the nerves in your ear exactly the same and to the same extent as in a Japanese person, so it all comes down to how you interpret what you hear. Luckily, nothing is permanent in your brain, so you can train yourself to do this with practice, just as you can train your tongue and mouth and vocal cords to move exactly like a Japanese person. It may not be easy and you may not be very good at it, but if your brain functions normally enough (I'm not asking much here), then don't doubt that your are capable of sounding like a 日本人.

danieldesu Wrote:I currently just took my last test in gross anatomy for dental school, and I can assuredly say that as different as everyone is, we all have the exact same set of muscles in our mouths, tongue, larynx, pharynx, etc, and we all have similar ears, tympanic membranes (ear drums), nerves,

Actually, I remember reading somewhere that some African tribes have mouth cavities of a slightly different shape which enables them to produce sounds which only exist in their language.

sutebun Wrote:Serge, you seem to have studied Phonetics quite a bit in Linguistics. What do you suggest as a good way to improve pronunciation, specifically the little things that are harder for learners to notice and that native speakers will still understand despite of the accent. Listen, record yourself, and try to repeat? I know some people who study phonetics in linguistics sometimes end up being accent coaches, do you know how they "train" people to speak?

A friend of mine recently studied with some sort of an accent coach here in London to improve his English accent. The result was zero improvement. The technique used was a lot of very complicated theory and some exercises...

I think it helps to know how the mouth works and why there are so many flavours of [t]s and [o]s, etc. It's like playing a musical instrument with strings - you shift your fingers a bit and you get a different colour to the same sound. The mouth is exactly like that: minute shifts produce minute yet very important difference in pronunciation... The mouth needs to be trained to become flexible. And the ear should be trained to recognise various shapes of [t]s and [o]s in the speech of others and it should be trained to understand which minute shifts in the mouth produce these various shapes... It's a tight cooperation between your mouth and your ears.

Intelligent and critical listening, then looking for equivalent sounds coming from your own mouth, critical listening to those... Repeating the process... With a lot of training, recognition and imitation start to happen naturally, in any language. It's also important not to be afraid to experiment and exaggerate.

There is a micro-level, when you're trying to get your [t]s right. And I believe that there is also a macro-level - when you just have to understand some universal truths about the way people speak any particular language. So for German, the glottal stop is very important. For Russian - the fact that every single syllable in the word has to be mumbled - except for the stressed one, of course. Italian is the opposite of Russian as it's a very staccato language. French sounds are very deep - the mouth becomes large and round, the tongue is pulled back, the lips are imperceptably protruded... And this is the exact opposite of English - at least, the 'public school' English accent, most of which is created in the front part of the mouth. Hearing, being able to analyse and reproduce such things helps enormously.

And so on... Not sure if any of this helps. I have to admit that I have never attempted teaching accents and hence do not have very well defined ideas about how things can be trained in practice. I am able in most cases, though, to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong in any particular case and what the tongue, etc. is doing as opposed to what it should be doing.

Here is one extremely useful article (although not related to Japanese) which echos my own thoughts on the subject of listening to other peoples' accents in your native language. The author of this blog is hugely inspirational and highly talented:

http://stujay.blogspot.com/2006/11/tingl...y-raj.html

Serge Wrote:Yet it is very uncommon to find learners who manage to speak English without any trace of an accent as a result of their adult studies.

Poll: Is it rude to correct someone on their pronunciation outside of the classroom?

I'd say that depends on the person, your relationship to them, and who is around at the time.

JimmySeal Wrote:I'd say that depends on the person, your relationship to them, and who is around at the time.

賛成

My own thoughts on pronunciation, particularly gaijin speaking Japanese and 日本人 speaking English, are that as long as you can understand what's being said and the speaker is making an effort with their pronunciation, then all is well.

You can certainly argue that the more native you sound, the better your foreign language pronunciation is considered to be. However, as I'm not Japanese I'm happy to accept that I don't sound like I was raised in Japan.

As there are a variety of accents and dialects across Japan, for the people who strive to sound Japanese, what do you mean? Is your ideal to sound like an NHK newscaster or like the people in the region you live?

synewave Wrote:My own thoughts on pronunciation, particularly gaijin speaking Japanese and 日本人 speaking English, are that as long as you can understand what's being said and the speaker is making an effort with their pronunciation, then all is well.

I tell my Business English students this all the time. I have experienced the odd time out where the most simple Japanese sentence, like "ビールにします", is met with a confused stare. Certainly it is the exception, but it makes me feel that the importance of pronunciation in a language may depend somewhat on how common that language is as a secondary language. So many people speak English these days that everyone has grown accustomed to the multitude of ways it is pronounced. Japanese, on the other hand, is usually only spoken by natives. This leads me to believe that the Japanese ear may therefor be a little less forgiving of a foreign accent.

dilandau23 Wrote:I have experienced the odd time out where the most simple Japanese sentence, like "ビールにします", is met with a confused stare.

Haven't we all. I find that women in general (not just the young attractive ones!) are more patient/forgiving when our pron. and language use is perhaps not 100%.

Last week I asked the master of a place I eat out at all the time a question. After repeating my question, then trying to re-phrase it, he called his wife over saying he couldn't understand me. Anyway, I said the same thing to her that I tried with the bloke once and she answered straight away...So whether the blame for the communication breakdown always falls on our side is debatable. I tend to agree with dilandau23.

dilandau23 Wrote:[i] believe that the Japanese ear may therefor be a little less forgiving of a foreign accent.

Quote:Haven't we all. I find that women in general (not just the young attractive ones!) are more patient/forgiving when our pr0n. and language use is perhaps not 100%.

I read it like this at first （＊^_^＊）

I'm of the opinion that people should strive to pronounce foreign languages as much like a native as possible. There are all different manners of pronunciation within a language, but native speakers are usually capable of identifying what sounds natural and what doesn't, and I think people should try to sound natural in one way or another. But I wouldn't suggest someone try to speak like an NHK newscaster any more than I would tell an English learner to speak like the host of Masterpiece Theatre.

Interpreting spoken language is hard enough, even between native speakers at times, so the less of a foreign accent there is, the less that is a problem. One's accent can also have a large impact on the way one is perceived by others.

johnzep Wrote:

Quote:Haven't we all. I find that women in general (not just the young attractive ones!) are more patient/forgiving when our pr0n. and language use is perhaps not 100%.

I read it like this at first （＊^_^＊）

You do have to admit that Japanese pr0n usage is much more advanced than in the west though.

I can't say I have ever met a speaker of a European langauge who has superb quality of pronunciation in Japanese. they make themselves understood but it is no way good. Everything I say is understood and I never get any confusion but I would still say that my pronunciation is absolutely awful.
I have met a couple of Indians, Nepalese, Sri lankan, Iranians who have excellent pronunciation. Most Chinese and Koreans are awful too but they think their Japanese is great because of the racial thing. But i won't open up that can of worms.