2009 Sept., Rookies J-drama karaoke, Ep 01 about 22 minutes in. http://www.snapvine.com/bp/x4qAIp1HEd6BhgAwSFsPiA

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Previous submissions

2009 March, iKnow Sentences
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/FQiUbgq0Ed65hgAwSFsOKg

2009 March, Ashita Hareru Kana.
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/PZ43fg7VEd6uTwAwSFxytA

2009 August Zettai Kareshi second submission
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/f72315e27f791...30485c71d2

2009 August Zettai Kareshi Intro
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/9yMV4n95Ed6SswAwSFxx0g

I think it is much better than the last time. Your mora is more clear cut and your pitch is more accurate.

Now the nitpicking.

You might already know, but some Japanese words are not actually pronounced how they are spelled in ひらがな. For example きゅうだん（球団）is pronounced きゅーだん, 野球（やきゅう）やきゅー、ていさい（体裁）てーさい、at least that's how I pronounce them. You CAN pronounce them 'correctly', but make sure these vowels have 2 moras.

Another nitpicking is that your ”っ”　in ケイちゃんって、しゅっせき（出席）、がっこう（学校）etc. are too short. I hear them more like けいちゃんて、しゅせき、がこう、etc. More pause there as if you have a silent 't' would sound more natural.

But over all, I think you are improving. How did you practice?

masaman Wrote:I think it is much better than the last time. Your mora is more clear cut and your pitch is more accurate.

Now the nitpicking.

You might already know, but some Japanese words are not actually pronounced how they are spelled in ひらがな. For example きゅうだん（球団）is pronounced きゅーだん, 野球（やきゅう）やきゅー、ていさい（体裁）てーさい、at least that's how I pronounce them. You CAN pronounce them 'correctly', but make sure these vowels have 2 moras.

Another nitpicking is that your ”っ”　in ケイちゃんって、しゅっせき（出席）、がっこう（学校）etc. are too short. I hear them more like けいちゃんて、しゅせき、がこう、etc. More pause there as if you have a silent 't' would sound more natural.

But over all, I think you are improving. How did you practice?

Thanks for the advice. I'm hoping that time will fix my faults so long I'm made aware of them now. Like I said in the recording, I was reading off the Dramanote so I guess it even sounds like I'm reading. What I might try offer up in a month or two is trying to do a song from memory that I ran through this process. For some reason I'm thinking RIP Slyme would be a good test (four different vocals, very fast pace).

I'm practicing like I wrote in that other thread: Use subs2srs, then line by line go through the drama. I then test the cards by listening with reading as a back-up. During this, it's just a matter of listening to the drama mixed in with the other dramas I "dissected". After a month, reading out loud along with the dialogue just "feels" like that's how I should say it.

I will say Rookies was a difficult drama to do. I would not recommend a person put it early into whatever learning rotation you pick out. Lots of slang, yelling, and fast talking that made it teadious up front. Very difficult for me to mimic even after two months as shown by the recording.

small "っ" and long vowel "ー", and ”ん” are the hardest things in Japanese pronunciation for English speakers so I may be being too harsh to you, but hey, you are a marine

Dissecting makes a lot of sense to me too. I've seen a lot of J people complaining they feel nothing after listening to "real" English hours a day for months.

How much time did you spend actually pronouncing these phrases? I'm interested because I think you are really improving.

I can't get my big "つ" down either. When I say つづり　or つつむ it sounds like すずり and すすむ to Japanese speakers. つぎ too.

masaman Wrote:small "っ" and long vowel "ー", and ”ん” are the hardest things in Japanese pronunciation for English speakers so I may be being too harsh to you, but hey, you are a marine

Dissecting makes a lot of sense to me too. I've seen a lot of J people complaining they feel nothing after listening to "real" English hours a day for months.

How much time did you spend actually pronouncing these phrases? I'm interested because I think you are really improving.

Honestly I didn't spend much time pronouncing Japanese at all outside of the SRS. During the normal day, I might find myself talking along with the audio if it comes up in the rotation, but it's not something I'm actively doing.

Thanks again for the criticism and compliments. I'm going to try to post a 5 minute sample at least once a month. In 7 months (the time I leave Africa) I'll try to post an actual conversation with one of the Japanese soldiers on base. So now I have a goal and there'll be evidence about progress to that goal.

Nukemarine Wrote:

masaman Wrote:small "っ" and long vowel "ー", and ”ん” are the hardest things in Japanese pronunciation for English speakers so I may be being too harsh to you, but hey, you are a marine

Dissecting makes a lot of sense to me too. I've seen a lot of J people complaining they feel nothing after listening to "real" English hours a day for months.

How much time did you spend actually pronouncing these phrases? I'm interested because I think you are really improving.

Honestly I didn't spend much time pronouncing Japanese at all outside of the SRS. During the normal day, I might find myself talking along with the audio if it comes up in the rotation, but it's not something I'm actively doing.

Thanks again for the criticism and compliments. I'm going to try to post a 5 minute sample at least once a month. In 7 months (the time I leave Africa) I'll try to post an actual conversation with one of the Japanese soldiers on base. So now I have a goal and there'll be evidence about progress to that goal.

So only 30 min or so reading out clips in Anki eh? But yea, doing it every day for a month is not easy. Thank YOU for posting all these. It really helps my motivation. I'll stick around for another 7 months to see how far you go.

Very impressive Icecream! Although you always sounded like you had good pronunciation, I can sense the improvement. Do you happen to also have a recording of what you shadowed, or could you point me in the direction of where you downloaded it from?

There were a few things I noticed that struck me as slightly off:
延期にしてくれ. <--- it's definitely something to do with the 「れ」sound. It's sounding more like an L to me, but the guy in the show (I'm assuming it's a guy?) who said it may very well have done that too.

Before I point out anything else I'd want to hear the original. I'm finding more that there can be many subleties in speech due to the tiniest change in region, so it's pretty easy for non-natives like me to be wrong when saying some sounds are "off" :B

IceCream Wrote:ありがとうございます。。。はい。。。こっちこっち：
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/b73bb954a0151...30485c72b4

yeah, it's a guy... i was trying to do a low voice, can you tell?

Now I'm tempted to shadow this! (gonna have to wait till wisdom teeth holes heal though)

For the most part, it seems you are pretty much spot-on with the original, excluding just small things here and there (masaman could give you a much better critique than I could though.) I think they are only problems that further shadowing fix pretty quickly. I can only vaguely say that the R sounds like れ and　ら (like in ぐらい）are sounding different to me in a way I can't really explain. I don't know if it's more of an L sound than is necessary, or perhaps it's the complete opposite. Maybe since I can't really pinpoint it, it's not that much of a problem. I think it might also be that you are making the sounds smoother than the people arguing are. It comes off that they are being a little more harsh with their R sounds.

Also, on「なっちゃう」towards the end, it sounds like you could extend the う a little more. I could hardly hear a difference between how you and the actress says it though. Just noticed it by a hair

And good job doing the man-voice!

And also, I just noticed that when you say the word 普通 you could be adding more harshness to the つ sound like how the actress did it. That's probably the overall difference I noticed between you and the actors - you pronounce the words very smoothly and they are pronouncing many things more harshly. Then again, this could be related to the fact that they are in a bit of a ケンカ．

I wonder if magamo or masaman could explain whether I'm right about this?

Either way, the way you smoothly pronounce the words sounds nice. There is something nice about listening to your Japanese overall I'd say! Keep up the good work, you can only get even better!

IceCream Wrote:hey... i copied nukemarine & did a short scene from a program. i hope i improved since last time, ive been trying to listen better since then & srsed dramas & stuff...

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/3l9wNp_rEd6L0AAwSFxx0g

it says:
何なんですか？ この超質素な食事は…。
今日から わが家は スーパー節約生活に入る。
何で？
何でも。
いつまで？
未定。
え?
それから月曜日の動物園 延期にしてくれ ごめんな。
え? ウソ…。
何でよ！ それも節約？
小説も書かなきゃいけないし う?ん ちょっと余裕がね…。
何よ！ 「約束破るな」とかいって 自分が破るなんて最低?
だから 中止じゃなくて 延期です。
もう いい！ 耕太郎のバカ?
ちょっと 動物園ぐらい行けないの？
楽しみにしてたのに… 杏ちゃんが。
それは 俺も行きたいけどさ いろいろ事情があんだよ。
仕方ないわね?。
しばらく 杏ちゃんの夕飯も 私が準備しますから。
こんなんじゃ 栄養不足になっちゃう。
贅沢だな?。
贅沢じゃ ない 普通です 普通！

sorry about the mic quality...

I think you are improving too, your mora is very tight and nice, and there are phrases that sound almost native-like here and there like なんなんですか.

Now the fun part

You mispronounced vowels a couple of times, for example,
しっそなしょくじ（質素な食事）was pronounced as しっそうなしょくじ, and long vowels "ー" in words like スーパー can be a bit longer, but It's your pitch I noticed the most. For example,

しっそな（超質素な）
わがやわ（我が家は）
みてい（未定）
せつやく（節約）
よゆう（余裕）
しょうせつ（小説）
やぶる(破る)
たのしみに（楽しみに）
おれも（俺も）
それは

are pronounced with incorrect accents (pitch accent that is).

I don't know this is something you should scrutinize or comes naturally over time though. It is just something I noticed. Ether way, you are improving so keep it up!

You're welcome IceCream. I'm actually curious how much you guys will improve.

It used to take me to remember an English word with the correct pronunciation 3 times longer than it did with a makeshift カタカナ pronunciation, but after several months and once I got the pattern of the English pronunciations, it became a lot easier and now I can't imagine how I would remember an English word with a カタカナ pronunciation, so it'll probably get a lot easier for you after a while too.

Masaman- when you use an English-loan word in Japanese do you use the カタカナ pronunciation or the English?

Masaman, are you a native speaker? I think I remember reading that you were exposed to Japanese fairly early - but from whatever it was I read I didn't get the impression you were learning from infancy. Or perhaps you were (because you definitely have the native-like knowledge)?

Also I'd like to say thank you for helping us all out here so often!

Uh oh, I meant to say magamo, sorry! I'm always getting those M-names mixed up D:

Off the top of my head (could be totally wrong) I think Masaman grew up in Japan but moved to America when he was about 18...? Or something like that.

captal Wrote:Masaman- when you use an English-loan word in Japanese do you use the カタカナ pronunciation or the English?

I use カタカナ, like most people in the US don't pronounce French-origin words with the 'correct' French pronunciations. French guys pronouncing French words with a French accent is cool, American guys pronouncing English words with English pronunciations can be cool, but a Japanese guy pronouncing English words with English pronunciations isn't very sexy IMO.

Nuriko Wrote:Masaman, are you a native speaker? I think I remember reading that you were exposed to Japanese fairly early - but from whatever it was I read I didn't get the impression you were learning from infancy. Or perhaps you were (because you definitely have the native-like knowledge)?

Also I'd like to say thank you for helping us all out here so often!

Yea, I was born in Shinjuku and only spoke Japanese untill I was 18. And no problem. I think I'm getting more from this forum than what I'm giving to it

edit:
SammyB is almost right. I grew up in Japan, went to the U.K., hung around for 5 years or so, came back to and worked in Japan a bit and moved to the states and now I'm stuck here in Colorado which is really cool place to be. I still can't find a creative way to put all this in my signature.

Edit: I'm sorry even my Japanese was unclear and full of run-on sentences. I'll read something later when I'm sober.

I was talking with some of the members of this forum about pronunciation and stuff on the RtK irc, and I was asked to upload my Japanese and English.

I tripped up here and there, and lots of words are mispronounced. But I'm too lazy to do it again, so here it goes:

http://www.snapvine.com/blog/show/fbac56...30485b0f88

@Nuriko
Ha ha, everyone confuses Masaman and me. I was born and raised in Japan. I've been speaking Japanese my entire life. Well, I moved to the US this month, so you could say it's entire life - 21 days.

I shadowed that drama excerpt that Icecream posted before and came up with this:

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/hlqQvqcgEd6KvgAwSFxytA

Embarrassing XD;; Don't be surprised if this is deleted later or somethin

There are parts here and there I'm not happy with but I'm not really up for perfecting it. For example, 事情 came out kinda funky and I'm probably saying everything too fast for it to come out right. In just a few words at least, how do you guys think I'm doing? Thanks everyone again for helping on this thread so much!

And thanks to Icecream for introducing this drama to me!

oops, I'm taking Magamo's credit, but it's not my fault

Nuriko, you seem to be on the way to the perfection. Here is some nitpicking.

The moras of 超質素 sound a bit off. ちょう's おう sounds like 1.5 mora to me, it sounds like toe's oe. Actually おう is more often pronounced おー. For instance, I don't pronounce 東京 as とうきょう, I, and a lot of other people, pronounce it とーきょー. You might get a better feel of the moras that way. or not. Ether way works it just has be be 2 moras. Also しっそ's　っ　is a bit short, it almost sounds like しそ to me.

And ending ’ん’ does not link with the next vowel like English N does.　動物園延期にしてくれ sounds like どうぶつえんねんきにしてくれ. There should be a clear distinction between ん and え.

The pitch of the following words are not accurate. Really just a bit though.

食事
書かなきゃ
ちょっと
なによ
破るな
だから
動物園くらい
準備しますから


That's about it. You're really good.

masaman Wrote:oops, I'm taking Magamo's credit, but it's not my fault

Nuriko, you seem to be on the way to the perfection. Here is some nitpicking.

The moras of 超質素 sound a bit off. ちょう's おう sounds like 1.5 mora to me, it sounds like toe's oe. Actually おう is more often pronounced おー. For instance, I don't pronounce 東京 as とうきょう, I, and a lot of other people, pronounce it とーきょー. You might get a better feel of the moras that way. or not. Ether way works it just has be be 2 moras. Also しっそ's　っ　is a bit short, it almost sounds like しそ to me.

And ending ’ん’ does not link with the next vowel like English N does.　動物園延期にしてくれ sounds like どうぶつえんねんきにしてくれ. There should be a clear distinction between ん and え.

The pitch of the following words are not accurate. Really just a bit though.

食事
書かなきゃ
ちょっと
なによ
破るな
だから
動物園くらい
準備しますから


That's about it. You're really good.

Thank you so much masaman for always giving such specific advice! The list of words is very helpful~ I'll keep these things in mind when I practice speaking/reading. I think one of the most difficult things for me when it comes to reading Japanese aloud is making the seperation between a "ん”-ending word and the next word. Being able to do that has never come very easily to me but I will keep trying

Thank you again!

you mean Nuriko isn't a native speaker? i couldn't tell the difference haha...

Hashiriya Wrote:you mean Nuriko isn't a native speaker? i couldn't tell the difference haha...

Farrrr from it. I've never even had a vocal conversation in Japanese... :B But thank you though!

Hello. Foolish as it may be (especially since this is my first post), I would like to take a shot at this. I am about 347 kanji into RTK now and have been a lurker on the RTK site and forum for a month or so. I have listened to everyone's clips -- I am still a rank beginner and cannot offer any feedback other than to say that I am *really* impressed with everyone's efforts... hearing readings like Noriko's is really motivating. It reminds me that shadowing is a good thing, and I hope to continue with that to improve my accent.

I've been shadowing Genki dialogues and KO2001 sentences and most recently Death Note, which is really my first proper anime. I used to think that I didn't care for anime, but DN was really outstanding. Anyway, I have the Japanese transcript and am now slowly trying to make my way through it (looking up words and grammar and shadowing).

So... I decided to submit my, uh, version of the beginning of Death Note. You can see the original clip here for reference... I cover about the first 1m29s:

I tried to do the shinigami voices, the schoolgirl voices, the teacher's voice, etc, so it's pretty silly. But it was so much fun....

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/4hXx2Kn5Ed6l4gAwSFxytA

Really I'm doing this for fun... my Japanese accent is bad, but I've been studying a little under a year and have only recently really started incorporating listening (thanks to having found AJATT) into my studies, so I see this as a long-term process. I have a long way to go!

mgbp7 - Being a beginner as you say, I think you're doing very well (I was also impressed by your voice-changing ability. Wish I could do that...). I expected more errors since you said you're a beginner but I was delightfully taken by surprise. The only thing I noticed was how you said "して” in "何もしてないのに” was somehow different from the seiyuu from the anime. Maybe it was that you pronounced the い a little more but even so, I'm not sure this is much of a problem or not. I have heard native speakers do that before but I just wanted to make sure I pointed out that I noticed a difference from the original. Hm, you'd think being the person who made the thread I'd be a little more helpful... (perhaps it's just that you're good enough to have non-natives not notice errors)

Good luck and I hope to see you posting around here more!

Nuriko, you are welcome and that's rihgt. mgbp7's recording was a good surprise. He's such a raconteur.

mgbp7,
The deaths have a death accent 　so I'll skip that part. Girls part is pretty much spot on. There isn't any mistake I can see, or should I say, hear.

The pitch of 今の and 和訳 is off and you pronounced 神の教え（おしえ）as 神のおし, and 文章(ぶんしょう or ぶんしょー) as ぶんしょ. Also the last だろう's pitch is going up. It's not a question so it should go down or stay flat.

面白かった　笑