So this has bothered me since I've started learning the language. How do you pronounce ん when it comes before a vowel? Before a p or b sound it becomes an m sound like 新聞 (shimbun). Before a g or k it becomes the ng sound like 審議 (shingi). and before other sounds it can be an n sound. But I don't understand how to pronounce ん before a a vowel.
For example  雰囲気 (fun'iki) or 準一級 (jun'ikkyuu)

I tried asking a Japanese friend of mind how they pronounce the sound. They said they don't move their tongue much and it doesn't touch the roof of their mouth. But they do produce a nasalized sound somehow. Can anyone explain how to produce this sound? Maybe there's a diagram to show where to place your tongue while pronouncing it?

[Zgarbas]

http://forvo.com/word/%E9%9B%B0%E5%9B%B2%E6%B0%97/
Try saying every syllable separately; note that the tongue never touches the roof of your mouth. Then practice uniting the sounds. It should come natural after a point; basically, they're not supposed to merge into a に.

[Katsuo]

Open your nasal passage so that air passes through both your nose and mouth at the same time. 

As well as vowels, this also applies to ん before y and s sounds.
E.g. compare the audio for 婚約 and 蒟蒻 by clicking the links below.

こんやく
こんにゃく

(2016-03-26, 9:26 am)Zgarbas Wrote: http://forvo.com/word/%E9%9B%B0%E5%9B%B2%E6%B0%97/
Try saying every syllable separately; note that the tongue never touches the roof of your mouth. Then practice uniting the sounds. It should come natural after a point; basically, they're not supposed to merge into a に.

For the k-consonant it does; you probably meant just for the ん part but I just wanted to clarify.

(A lot of native speakers pronounce 雰囲気 as ふいんき; as of yet that's not the standard pronunciation but it's getting there.)

(2016-03-26, 12:25 pm)Katsuo Wrote: Open your nasal passage so that air passes through both your nose and mouth at the same time. 

I don't know how to do this

(2016-03-26, 7:41 pm)Chomskyan Wrote:

(2016-03-26, 12:25 pm)Katsuo Wrote: Open your nasal passage so that air passes through both your nose and mouth at the same time. 

I don't know how to do this

This this might help

Quote:Next, let’s look at vowels, which are made without touching the tongue or lips. To make ん before a vowel, nasalize the preceding vowel. This one was the trickiest sound for me to acquire for sure, because we don’t differentiate nasal vowels in English. Try saying the words “win” and “wit”, and notice how the /ɪ/ sound changes. Now try “boon” and “boot”. English speakers naturally nasalize vowels before a nasal consonant, so you need to be able to do that at will in Japanese (French as well, for that matter). Japanese speakers also seem to use this before the [ɸu] sound, ふ.

千円（せんえん）[sẽẽɴ]
三位（さんい）[sãi]
原因（げんいん）[gẽĩɴ]
インフルエンザ [ĩɸu̥ɾuenza]

Source: http://gengojeff.com/2013/06/16/japanese-nasal/

EDIT: Found something that might be to you liking. Shows video and pictures of how your tongue should look like while making the ん sound based on the usage.

https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-less...nce-m-n-n/

(2016-03-26, 8:23 pm)RawrPk Wrote: This this might help

Quote:Next, let’s look at vowels, which are made without touching the tongue or lips. To make ん before a vowel, nasalize the preceding vowel. This one was the trickiest sound for me to acquire for sure, because we don’t differentiate nasal vowels in English. Try saying the words “win” and “wit”, and notice how the /ɪ/ sound changes. Now try “boon” and “boot”. English speakers naturally nasalize vowels before a nasal consonant, so you need to be able to do that at will in Japanese (French as well, for that matter). Japanese speakers also seem to use this before the [ɸu] sound, ふ.

千円（せんえん）[sẽẽɴ]
三位（さんい）[sãi]
原因（げんいん）[gẽĩɴ]
インフルエンザ [ĩɸu̥ɾuenza]

Source: http://gengojeff.com/2013/06/16/japanese-nasal/

EDIT: Found something that might be to you liking. Shows video and pictures of how your tongue should look like while making the ん sound based on the usage.

https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-less...nce-m-n-n/

So that wasabi link doesn't have a diagrams from ん proceeding a consonant. But if its a nasalized sound, I found this video for nasalized sounds in Portugese which is very helpful. I'll have to test this later with my friend and see if it sounds natural

[Katsuo]

I think the Portugese video you linked to expains the ん before s/y/vowel sound very well. There are five ways of pronouncing ん in Japanese, and the Wasabi link covers the other four.

For んえ, it sometimes sounds like people are pronouncing え as "ye", most commonly with 千円 and 万円. The japanesepod101 pronunciation video pronounces 千円 strictly and it sounded pretty weird...

Also を in んを sometimes sounds like "wo" (e.g. this 安全を図る).

Both of those are standard pronunciations.

It's much easier to say that way, so hopefully of some use to the OP.

千円 as "sen-yen" is what I'm used to hearing, and I was surprised when I heard the Jpod pronunciation version. Does anyone actually say "sen-en"?

(2016-03-30, 6:47 am)HelenF Wrote: It's much easier to say that way, so hopefully of some use to the OP.

千円 as "sen-yen" is what I'm used to hearing, and I was surprised when I heard the Jpod pronunciation version. Does anyone actually say "sen-en"?

That sounds very odd to me. It's possible it could be dialect, but it's more likely that the native speaker(?) is either purposely trying to pronounce the separate syllables of the word by themselves, or has gotten the idea that the "y" technically shouldn't be there and so is overcorrecting her own speech to remove it. In either case, it sounds unnatural (to me, at least).

http://nihongodecarenavi.net/sp/e/jpn/ke...%E5%86%86/

I used this site's audio database to look up the word and got a hit for 3 different words containing at least 1 or both kanji. From the words that contains both kanji, I. can hear the "y" sound in the pronunciation.

[Zgarbas]

It sounds about as natural as a dictionary reading that tries way too hard to sound 'proper'. No one says it like that.

Thanks, I thought it sounded unnatural, but better check since I'm only lower intermediate

It was this premium video. I didn't clip the bit with the actual separate syllables.

Quote:Be careful of this word too.
せんえん、one thousand yen,
せ・ん・え・ん
せんえん
せんえん
Don't say せんねん.
Make sure that you keep the tip of your tongue suspended in the empty space, and don't touch it to any particular part

Then she goes on to talk about the modifications of ん in うんめい and さんか, so it's doubly strange to avoid the modification of え in せんえん.

The rest of the series seemed pretty good on the whole.