1. How do I pronounce た (ta)、て (te)、と (to)、ぱ (pa)、ぺ(pe)、and ぽ(po)? It seems that these hiragana can be pronounced in many different ways. Should I pronounce them softly, 'hardly', or both depending on the context? I will provide some examples to illustrate my question.

Hard T: Naruto(なると) , Nobita(のびた), Motoko(もとこ), Bato(ばと)
Soft T: tennis, table
Hard P: Oppa Gangnam Style, kappa (かっぱ)
Soft P: please, play, pencil

2. What's the difference between the pronunciations of つ and す?

maaaaaaaa Wrote:2. What's the difference between the pronunciations of つ and す?

I'm not expert on pronunciation things, but in English you often get the same consonant as つ in places like "What's up?" or its abbreviation "Tsup?" And then the equivalent consonant for す would just be the s--like in 'supper' (I'm using an example followed by the same vowel so you con compare--of course, the Japanese vowel here is different). That's how I think of it, anyway, without getting too technical.

(I don't know about the 't' thing so well, since I don't really think about it. I was told when learning to put my tongue farther forward near my teeth so that less air escapes than usual.)

I also have a third question. How exactly should I pronounce the hiragana が? It seems some people pronounced it like the hard G in 'great' and 'good', but some people pronounce it like the 'ng' in 'song'.

Examples

ありがとう

Variation 1 A-ri-ga-tou
Variation 2 A-ri-nga-tou

Which variation is correct, or are both of them correct?

maaaaaaaa Wrote:1. How do I pronounce た (ta)、て (te)、と (to)、ぱ (pa)、ぺ(pe)、and ぽ(po)? It seems that these hiragana can be pronounced in many different ways. Should I pronounce them softly, 'hardly', or both depending on the context? I will provide some examples to illustrate my question.

Hard T: Naruto(なると) , Nobita(のびた), Motoko(もとこ), Bato(ばと)
Soft T: tennis, table
Hard P: Oppa Gangnam Style, kappa (かっぱ)
Soft P: please, play, pencil

2. What's the difference between the pronunciations of つ and す?

1.Words have different pitch accents, so really if you'd like to find out how to pronounce all of those, just watch some Japanese media.

2. Well for つ, you can hear different "versions" of it. For example 作る (つくる), I guess it sounds like a sizzling noise in the beginning followed by the sounds ku + ru. I'm not sure how to put it, the use there sounds like putting meat in the grill or something. Another pronunciation of つ would be in a word like 初恋（はつこい）The は will sound fast followed by a ~tss（つ）koi. It's hard to explain, the more times you hear it, it will be more easily heard.

maaaaaaaa Wrote:I also have a third question. How exactly should I pronounce the hiragana が? It seems some people pronounced it like the hard G in 'great' and 'good', but some people pronounce it like the 'ng' in 'song'.

Examples

ありがとう

Variation 1 A-ri-ga-tou
Variation 2 A-ri-nga-tou

Which variation is correct, or are both of them correct?

They're both correct, and I think different ones are more or less popular by region. If I remember correctly the nasal g is more popular in Tokyo than the hard g.

Xanpakuto Wrote:2. Well for つ, you can hear different "versions" of it. For example 作る (つくる), I guess it sounds like a sizzling noise in the beginning followed by the sounds ku + ru. I'm not sure how to put it, the use there sounds like putting meat in the grill or something. Another pronunciation of つ would be in a word like 初恋（はつこい）The は will sound fast followed by a ~tss（つ）koi. It's hard to explain, the more times you hear it, it will be more easily heard.

All 'u's and 'i's between two unvoiced consonants (k t p h s) are devoiced in Japanese (if they aren't accented). So in the same way つくる sounds like 'tskuru,' くつ sounds like 'ktsu.' You just make the same shape you usually would with your mouth, but you don't use your vocal chords so the vowel sound doesn't come out.

This is also true at the end of a sentence, which is why です often sounds like 'des'.

One thing I find really grating is when learners pronounce よろしく with a strong vowel on the 'shI'. It should be devoiced and sound like yoroshku.

maaaaaaaa Wrote:1. How do I pronounce た (ta)、て (te)、と (to)、ぱ (pa)、ぺ(pe)、and ぽ(po)? It seems that these hiragana can be pronounced in many different ways. Should I pronounce them softly, 'hardly', or both depending on the context? I will provide some examples to illustrate my question.

Hard T: Naruto(なると) , Nobita(のびた), Motoko(もとこ), Bato(ばと)
Soft T: tennis, table
Hard P: Oppa Gangnam Style, kappa (かっぱ)
Soft P: please, play, pencil

If by "soft" you mean "aspirated", then you should always pronounce them "hard", since aspiration isn't a feature of Japanese phonology.

As for the G, it's as Tzadeck said. Although, to further complicate matters there's also a third possible pronunciation, a voiced fricative consonant. If you're interested, here is the detailed information about the various sounds' distribution. However, since all three sounds are allophones of the same underlying phoneme it shouldn't make much difference which sound you use, as long as you clearly distinguish it from /k/, /h/ and /n/.

Aspiration isn't a feature of Japanese phonology in the sense that it is used for contrastive purposes like it is in languages such as Korean, but aspiration to a certain extent does exist for non-voiced plosive sounds. This extent depends on the speaker, of course. In my experience, most of my Japanese friends have a very audible degree of aspiration in their speech, but it isn't near as strong as an average American English speaker, which is what should be expected. The most frequently aspirated plosive in Japanese in my experience is /k/.

imabi Wrote:Aspiration isn't a feature of Japanese phonology in the sense that it is used for contrastive purposes like it is in languages such as Korean, but aspiration to a certain extent does exist for non-voiced plosive sounds. This extent depends on the speaker, of course. In my experience, most of my Japanese friends have a very audible degree of aspiration in their speech, but it isn't near as strong as an average American English speaker, which is what should be expected. The most frequently aspirated plosive in Japanese in my experience is /k/.

So I should try not to "aspirate" to be more natural?

If you have a good ear, I would just copy what you hear from normal speech. Pronunciations can be exaggerated in certain aspects in music, so I would try to focus on conversation. If you know Japanese people, you can ask them simple questions like, "when you say かたち, do you feel a puff of air when you put your hand close to your mouth for any of the sounds?".

Absolutely no aspiration would be unnatural because it ignores the fact that Japanese does have it to an extent. It's just that this extent is below the average extent found among English speakers. However, it is also greater than other language communities such as Spanish.

Thank you everybody for providing interesting and useful information. But I still have some more questions.

Tzadeck Wrote:All 'u's and 'i's between two unvoiced consonants (k t p h s) are devoiced in Japanese (if they aren't accented).

What are 'unvoiced consonants'? When are u's and i's accented in Japanese?

Tzadeck Wrote:So in the same way つくる sounds like 'tskuru,' くつ sounds like 'ktsu.' You just make the same shape you usually would with your mouth, but you don't use your vocal chords so the vowel sound doesn't come out.

This is also true at the end of a sentence, which is why です often sounds like 'des'.

One thing I find really grating is when learners pronounce よろしく with a strong vowel on the 'shI'. It should be devoiced and sound like yoroshku.

Can you please give more examples of words and phrases with devoiced u's and i's?

imabi Wrote:Absolutely no aspiration would be unnatural because it ignores the fact that Japanese does have it to an extent. It's just that this extent is below the average extent found among English speakers. However, it is also greater than other language communities such as Spanish.

So basically, the Japanese language has some aspiration but not as much as the English language, am I right?

How would most Japanese pronounce the た in the name たなか, the と in the name とうま, and the て in the name てんり?

maaaaaaaa Wrote:What are 'unvoiced consonants'? When are u's and i's accented in Japanese?

I mean, consonants that you don't use your vocal chords to produce--k t p h and s. Put your hand on your throat and make an s sound. No vibration, right? Now make a z sound--your mouth is in the same shape but you are using your vocal chords. You will feel your throat vibrate. Same thing is true of k t p and h (g is k with vocal chords, d is t with vocal chords, b is p with vocal chords).

I won't explain pitch accent--there are many threads about it and its complicated.

maaaaaaaa Wrote:Can you please give more examples of words and phrases with devoiced u's and i's?

There are many thousands of examples. Think of a words that have k t p h or s as consonants. If I put devoiced vowels in parentheses: しやくしょ　is shiyak(u)sho, 行きたかった is ik(i)takatta, した is sh(i)ta, くそ is k(u)so, しつれいします is sh(i)tsurei shimas(u). It also changes depending on what comes after words. So 食べたいです is tabetai des(u), 食べたいですよ is tabetai desu yo, 食べたいですし is tabetai des(u) shi, 食べたいですので is tabetai desu no de.