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I recently bought Remembering the Kana from Amazon and was excited to get to work. But I soon realized it was for people with American accents. I am English so it's not much help.
For example:
さ Sa:
The sounds for SAmurai and SOck
Which the SA and SO sound completely different.
Can someone please recommend me an alternative for an English person?
Joined: Dec 2007
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Yes it's a travesty, just google for a kana website and you'll usually find some flashcard type sites to use. It works just as well, there aren't that many letters.
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Actually, pronounced the 'American' way, Samurai and Sock sound different in America, too. That's a really bad example, since it depends on you saying Samurai the Japanese way. 'Saw' would probably have been a better example.
But as others said, there is -no- substitute for hearing it with your own ears. No matter how well they describe the sounds, too many of them don't -really- sound like sounds in English. They're a mix of sounds, or a unique sound that we don't really have. (Depending on how you look at them.)
iKnow.co.jp has hiragana and katakana courses with sounds... I'm really loving that site now.
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It did not occur to me that accents were going to play a role in how you internalized the pronunciations of the kana. To me, the English words Heisig picked worked great as a pronunciation example.
However, as you all are pointing out that British, Australian and likely regional US accents will alter how the word is said, then I'll add that caution in my future recommendations.
Granted, it was how he broke down the kana into parts that helped me write better. The dagger, boomerang, two, dog tail, no sign, etc. were just little tidbits that helped where Kana Pict-O-Graphix failed.
Joined: Jan 2009
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I'm reading this book and I must say...well...sometimes I'm confused.
Heisig claims that た sounds the same as top...hmm? on iKnow it sounds like ta!
I feel like I would be lost without double-checking the sound on iKnow... o.O
Edited: 2009-01-27, 7:49 pm
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た sounds more like the 'to' in 'top' than it does the 'ta' in 'tan,' basically. Actually, た never sounds like any application of 'ta' in American English. At least, not by itself. You could make a case for things like 'tawdry' or whatever, but that's from the 'aw' phonogram.
It's really better to just listen to the sounds and not let the romanizations or English comparisons influence you at all, though.
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QuackingShoe, thanks for your advice. That helps. I'm still a bit confused though. The second word that Heisig suggests is 'tatami' and it sounds like on iKnow. So that makes sense. But what do you mean when you say "at least, not by itself"? Can the sound change? Like, く and う do not sound like cooing and Udine on iKnow but I guess that's because they stand alone, right? Dang, I feel like throwing Heisig's book away and just focussing on iKnow...
Edited: 2009-01-27, 8:08 pm
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I suppose that may be, but since you seem to be using the English book, it only has English examples to work with. If kü seems more accurate to you, then you're better fit to judge than I am as I don't know German. But as for it changing slightly based on what's around it, I don't notice anything. But maybe it does. I'm in the camp that says this sort of thing doesn't need so much analyzing.
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I say don't give up on Remembering the Kana. It's an excellent book for remember the writing of the kana. All you have to do is ignore the pronunciation help. Most of them aren't pronounced much differently than you would think, anyway. Plus, there are countless places on the internet to hear natives pronounce the kana. So just use Remembering the Kana as a way to remember how to write them. Because it helped me do that in about 6 hours for both sets (ひらがな and カタカナ)
