seminotti Wrote:Very interesting topic! I'l take advantage of it and bring something that has been bugging me for a while. It' about the 'j' sound.

When I studied the phonetics of the language for the first time, it was clear to me that the japanese 'j' is very close to the english sound.

Nevertheless, most of the times i hear 大丈夫, じょう sounds more like "zho". Is it just my imagination, or am I right?

Thanks in advance.

I don't know if I understand your question. But most English learners in Japan are having trouble hearing the difference between "jor" in "major" and "sure" in "measure." So it's very common to substitute the Japanese "j" for the first consonant in the voiced "sure" in words like "pleasure," "closure," etc.

magamo Wrote:I just skimmed through the paper, and it says "r" has been considered one of the most difficult sounds for kids. It also says there is a certain difference in every phoneme between boys and girls under 6. But it basically assessed how often they "correctly" pronounce words that contain a give sound, so it doesn't necessarily mean there is a masculine "r". By the way, girls seem to be better at pronunciation than boys overall.

That's funny. Little kids here sometimes have a problem with their "auwws'. The J "r"'s and nasal "ぎ"'s can be tough for me. I also notice "ん" gets softened/blended (not sure how best to describe it) in some places.

And some male speech is so quick/slurry that I wonder if I will ever be able to get it. I have a pod cast that is just two guys talking (not sure what dialect) and it's crazy muddy/fast....Is there a Japanese equivalent of Pikey? http://[video=youtube]http://www.youtube...Q8[/video]

I think it should be important to note, that even native english children make a lot of errors with "R" as they are learning. It is only through heavy repitition and hearing it all the time that they finally get it correct.

How many kids do you hear saying "Wabbit or Labbit" my brother used to say "Labbit" which as a child i did find funny. Although my other brother did pronounce Spaghetti as BSketti.. so go figure kids are dumb
Is there just something about the way you pronounce R.. seems to be cross cultural.

Im having a lot of trouble getting the ぎ sound. to me it sounds like "ngi" and i can't quite force that sound out of my mouth without feeling slightly stupid. Immersion and practice will hopefully sort it i guess.

(Didn't see Taylor had posted a similar thing above me )

Squintox Wrote:I think you guys are making it look more complicated than it really is >_>

I learned all of it very quickly from shadowing in Rosetta stone when I was 'trying out' their product for a few months and I had no manual or explanations.

Squintox Wrote:If I ever have a J-girl teach me, I'll be sure to ask her "ok, but if you were a dude, HOW would you say it?"!

Or you could get a J-girl that's also a T-girl and kill two birds with one stone.

@Gingerninja

Haha that's funny. I'm told I used to say "Grexsbucx" for "breakfast" when I was a wee lad.

I think there's a mechanical thing to it....developing the subtle tongue muscles takes time and work, and a little kids still developing it. Same thing for us adults, making new sounds. In the short 9 months since I first started shadowing Japanese, I have noticed big mechanical improvements with my pronunciation and fluidness, but some things are still "stiff" (insert joke here).

magamo Wrote:

seminotti Wrote:Very interesting topic! I'l take advantage of it and bring something that has been bugging me for a while. It' about the 'j' sound.

When I studied the phonetics of the language for the first time, it was clear to me that the japanese 'j' is very close to the english sound.

Nevertheless, most of the times i hear 大丈夫, じょう sounds more like "zho". Is it just my imagination, or am I right?

Thanks in advance.

I don't know if I understand your question. But most English learners in Japan are having trouble hearing the difference between "jor" in "major" and "sure" in "measure." So it's very common to substitute the Japanese "j" for the first consonant in the voiced "sure" in words like "pleasure," "closure," etc.

Sorry, I'll try to clarify it:

I thought there wasn't such a sound like "sure" in "measure" in the japanese language (which I referred to as "zh" in my first post). I thought the consonant sound in じょ was always pronounced like "John". But my experience tells me the opposite: many times I hear 大丈夫 like "dahy-zho-boo" instead of "dahy-jo-boo".

So the point of my question is to know if there are really these two ways of saying it, and if so, if it's particular to a certain group, a regional phenomenon, or something alike.

Is there a thread somewhere on general masculine / feminine speech? There are some basic ones you learn in textbooks (かしら、な、あたし、etc). But there are always a bunch that I'm not sure about - and I tend to hear more women speakers, so I try to be careful not to pick up their lexicon or intonation.

Since ーちゃった is more feminine, what's the equivalent? For なくちゃ、the masculine equivalent is なきゃ, right?

I remember there was a thread about 僕、俺、私、etc - although I don't think we ever covered 君、あなた、etc?

I think there is a conspiracy to make gaijin men sound like girls and have us unknowingly emasculating ourselves

TaylorSan Wrote:That's funny. Little kids here sometimes have a problem with their "auwws'. The J "r"'s and nasal "ぎ"'s can be tough for me. I also notice "ん" gets softened/blended (not sure how best to describe it) in some places.

I guess the average Japanese doesn't hear the difference between Japanese "r"s and slightly gaijin-ish "r". Since English "r" and "l" are exactly the same sound to most Japanese, the difference you feel is not that huge to Japanese ears. This may not be a good simile, but I think it's like the majority distinguish red and green differently than individuals with red-green color blindness.

Probably E-J bilinguals like Aijin have the "pickiest" ears when it comes to your accent because their ears are trained to catch both American and Japanese sounds. (You speak American English, right?)

As for ん, you might want to read this article on Japanese Wikipedia. Among others, it says there are several phonetically different sounds in ん including, but not limited to, [n] (similar to English "n" in "ban"), [m] (similar to English "m"), [ŋ] (similar to "n" in "bank"), and [ɲ] (Japanese "ny"). It can also be a nasal vowel. According to the article, native speakers see them as a single phoneme, and there are no definite rules governing when to use which. I do think so, too. I just pronounce it the way I want to, and it can vary depending on the mood, speech speed and whatnot.

TaylorSan Wrote:And some male speech is so quick/slurry that I wonder if I will ever be able to get it. I have a pod cast that is just two guys talking (not sure what dialect) and it's crazy muddy/fast....Is there a Japanese equivalent of Pikey? http://[video=youtube]http://www.youtube...Q8[/video]

Heyhowyadoin, ...blah blah broha brohahh blah... (Me doesn't think it's English.)

magamo Wrote:Heyhowyadoin, ...blah blah broha brohahh blah... (Me doesn't think it's English.)

its not thats the joke Its sort of very slang english with a rural irish accent. Quite Horrific should you ever encounter someone who speaks like that in real life. also because of that movie (Snatch by Guy Ritchie) I can barely listen to an irish accent anymore without wanting to laugh.

or at least ask them if they like "dags" ^-^


To a few posts above.. i have found on occasion i drop the ん when saying something fast, like すみませ .. i do notice and correct myself. Have to make it more deliberate.

magamo Wrote:I think most Japanese would recognize it as ひ, though he didn't seem to articulate the word. When I watched it again, I thought it was somewhere between the typical ひ and し, leaning more toward ひ. Apparently the context helped me recognize it, and if I only listened to the ひ taken from the video, it could be unclear. I don't think it's a regional accent.

Yeah I could recognize it as a ひ too, but his pronunciation surprises me every time, so there must be something uncommon in the way he says it. It's just a little stronger then the average, maybe.

In a nutshell, and in a normal speech, を is always pronounced お, らりるれろ is pronounced by lightly touching very tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth about 1/4 inch behind your teeth. As for ジョ, you can pronounce it with J or Zh and nobody will be able to tell the difference. I personally pronounce all G's non-nasal, and I'm from Tokyo. 松本's ひとり does somewhat sounds like しとり to me, but he's pronunciation in general isn't very clear in the first place.

Really though, I think good pronunciation in Japanese is just something nice to have. It's the intonation and rhythm that makes your speech natural and easy to understand in my opinion. Likewise,the same phrase can sound manly or girly depending on the intonation you use. I don't think なきゃ by itself sounds feminine. I use it all the time.

Wait, or Am I sounding feminine.....

seminotti Wrote:I thought there wasn't such a sound like "sure" in "measure" in the japanese language (which I referred to as "zh" in my first post). I thought the consonant sound in じょ was always pronounced like "John". But my experience tells me the opposite: many times I hear 大丈夫 like "dahy-zho-boo" instead of "dahy-jo-boo".

So the point of my question is to know if there are really these two ways of saying it, and if so, if it's particular to a certain group, a regional phenomenon, or something alike.

Oh, wow! I do pronounce "j" in だいじょうぶ like "zh". The "j" in じゃんけん (rock-paper-scissors) is more like English "j". I never realized there are two "j"s in Japanese. I think "j" usually becomes a "zh"-ish sound when you say it in the middle of a word while it's more like English "j" when it's the beginning of a word or right after ん. This rule is pretty rough, though.

My English teachers should have taught this when I was a high school kid. I think It'd be easier to grasp the feel of English "j" and "zh" this way. Their "pleasure" was pretty much like "poo-rejah" though...

Edit: Hey, masaman. Say じゃんけん and だいじょうぶ. The two "j"s are like English "j" and "zh". I don't think this is regional. This was a real eye-opener for me.

jmkeralis Wrote:You've been up for 40 HOURS?! DAMN son - go to bed!

Thank you. I do. I've been wanting to go to bed, but I've never switched English and Japanese back and forth like today so my brain is kind of exited and won't let me sleep. Oh, and I was working on my laptop to finish this borin..., um, exiting job my boss hurled at me the other day. Gah!

Anyway, lately RtK has always been sitting on one of the tabs in my firefox when I'm supposed to work hard. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Gingerninja Wrote:

magamo Wrote:Heyhowyadoin, ...blah blah broha brohahh blah... (Me doesn't think it's English.)

its not thats the joke smile Its sort of very slang english with a rural irish accent. Quite Horrific should you ever encounter someone who speaks like that in real life. also because of that movie (Snatch by Guy Ritchie) I can barely listen to an irish accent anymore without wanting to laugh.

or at least ask them if they like "dags" ^-^

I see. I just wonder if the Irish aren't offended by the movie... And what's dags? I've never heard the word.

Hardcore Newfies in Canada sound somewhat like ブラピ in Snatch. Then again, they are descended from the Irish lower classes too.

magamo Wrote:I see. I just wonder if the Irish aren't offended by the movie... And what's dags? I've never heard the word.

Dag = Dog its like a jokey sterotype on the way irish people speak. I am part Scottish so i have all kinds of weird pronounciations that most people would think are odd.
Broader scotish accents would pronounce dog as do-g, like how Japanese put a う.
(I don't say it that way by the way. unless im purposly playing up the accent to joke around)

I don't think the Irish were offended really. Its not making fun of them, its making fun of the "Pikeys" (AKA.. Gypo's.. Gypsies a few other terms you may hear instead of that) who are pretty much hated by everyone who has ever come into contact with them.

Rosetta stone.. (yeah i know..) one of the first things it teachs you is 男の人 which to my ears does sound like Otokonohishto so thats the ひ problem again.

magamo Wrote:Hey, masaman. Say じゃんけん and だいじょうぶ. The two "j"s are like English "j" and "zh". I don't think this is regional.

Yea, it does sound more J with じゃんけん and zh with 大丈夫.

TaylorSan Wrote:If I ever have a J-girl teach me, I'll be sure to ask her "ok, but if you were a dude, HOW would you say it?"!

Yea the thing is, they don't know! I asked all the time "so what's the guy's equivelent of this?" and she goes "...err I dunno, you wanna watch Ponyo on the Cliff or sumthing?" hehe, seriously, I asked tons of times, seems like they don't know, or don't want to teach you...wait a minute...YEAH that's it!! They DON'T want to teach you guy's talk. I remember I asked once "why won't you tell me?" And she's like "well then it makes you sound rude... like this it's more cuuute!" :O So there you have the reason. They purpously feminize you turning you in a トトロ

yukkuri_kame Wrote:I knew かしら was girl talk, but didn't know ちゃた was on the list. Thanks for helping me salvage a shred of my manhood.

Well you can use ちゃた if you're a 6 year old boy
But I think guys can use ちゃた, although not all the time. I saw a ドラマ and a man said ~ちゃた, but then again, he was talking to his daughter...

haplology Wrote:For なくちゃ、the masculine equivalent is なきゃ, right?

I learned なきゃ from a J-girl

masaman Wrote:I don't think なきゃ by itself sounds feminine. I use it all the time.

Wait, or Am I sounding feminine.....

Read above
But I do use なきゃ also.

It's quite amazing how girl's speech and guy's speech differ from eachother huh.

I think I used あたし once or twice subconsiously, oh god, I'm worried...
Darn those J-girls!! I ain't no Clefairy! (hehe)

Btw, a triple R is really the tongue breaker for me like 食べられる or 伝えられている. Slowly I can manage, but at full speed my tongue gets tied often.

Tongue twister: 赤パジャマ青パジャマ黄パジャマ 3x

Musashi Wrote:Well you can use ちゃた if you're a 6 year old boy
But I think guys can use ちゃた, although not all the time

There is nothing wrong with a male using 〜ちゃった. ex: あ、財布忘れちゃった。 Almost no one would say あ、財布を忘れてしまった in the same situation. It's too much of a mouthful for casual speech.

There is very little difference in modern male vs female (標準語) speech (other than personal pronoun usage and those who exagerrate their speech). Men's speech is becoming more feminine and women's speech is becoming more masculine. Most of the difference now is just in how high pitched the voice is and women being more polite in general.

It's too bad really.. I wish my girlfriend used うち (or at least あたし), かしら, 〜わ etc. Self referring with her own name would be いたい I guess :/

Musashi Wrote:Read above

失礼ね、私女っぽくなんかないわよ。　

Musashi Wrote:the thing is, they don't know! I asked all the time "so what's the guy's equivelent of this?" and she goes "...err I dunno, you wanna watch Ponyo on the Cliff or sumthing?" hehe, seriously, I asked tons of times, seems like they don't know, or don't want to teach you...wait a minute...YEAH that's it!! They DON'T want to teach you guy's talk. I remember I asked once "whyssa won't you tell me?" And she's like "well then it makes you sound rude... like this it's more cuuute!" yikes So there you have the reason. They purpously feminize you turning you in a トトロ

Haha- Conspiracy!

But seriously, Jarvik7 makes a good point. I'm not too worried about it, I'll just use [kana]僕[/kana] and clear cut stuff, stay on the look out for differences, and keep it nice and low!

I just find it funny how I hear story after story about this.

A newbie question for the native/advanced....

Do you think self taught mining sentence method can lead to a mishmash of dialect/regional sounding language? Someone (maybe Javik7?) mentioned something about this on the AJATT thread (I think talking about Khatz). If your mining from all over the place, how does that effect how you'll speak? I'm sure living in Japan would iron it out. But Japanese is so different from my native language, that it's very hard for me to recognize these things (I'm sure as I pay my dues this changes). To me, it's all Japanese.....

I can only reference English, because it's all I know well, but if I said some things with a British accent, some things with a Southern drawl, some things with a New York style, and some things in pigeon English it would sound really funny at best (and weird), and like I belonged in an insane asylum at wost. Probably a silly comparison (and exaggerated), because I am just starting to learn about regional differences, but there sure are quite a few (Wikipedia lists 14). And I could see how strange habits might take awhile to correct, my guess being that Nihonjin in general would not tell you how bazaar you sound (or that your a wussy girly-man!LOL).

Probably a silly question, but thanks for indulging me (if you chose to respond).

My personal speaking style is of a person from Umeda Osaka. In other words, I use some Kansai-ben mixed into Hyoujungo. If I lived in a more inaka area of Kansai I would probably be all 'NANDEYANEN' all the time.

It's ok to mix in some regional dialect a LITTLE bit, such as in my example above. Most Japanese people try to hide their regional accent/dialect (in public) if they have one, so it's quite common to hear hyoujungo with some hougen in it "leaking out". The problem comes when you start mixing multiple hougen together or speak standard Japanese and all of a sudden throw in some すごく訛ってる方言 and have no real reason for it other than that you saw it in a manga.

Then there are also the problems of imitating gangster speech, super girly speech (particularly high pitched voice), childish language, 爺 speech, etc. Developing your speech is a minefield and the only way to successfully navigate it is to pay very close attention to the speaker's age/gender/social position/hometown before you try to copy/sentence-mine it.

Most Japanese people use 標準語 or similar dialects on TV, and they don't usually write in 方言, so as long as you are taking materials out of TV, movies, books etc, you are probably OK.

I personally think a foreigner speaking 方言 would be awesome though. But you probably need to live in a region for at least several years, so it isn't very realistic.

Edit: Actually, watch out for comedians. A lot of them are from Osaka, and they often speak 大阪弁. They tamed it down a bit so that everybody understands, and it can even be advantage to you in some situations if you pick it up, but it's probably good to know it's not 標準語.

masaman Wrote:Most Japanese people use 標準語 or similar dialects on TV, and they don't usually write in 方言, so as long as you are taking materials out of TV, movies, books etc, you are probably OK.

関西弁 is extremely common on TV (ex comedy/variety shows). Books/manga/drama/anime also frequently use dialect (and affected speechだブー) as a form of characterization. I don't want to imagine what someone would sound like if they were sentence-mining stuff like Rookies and Slam Duck (lots of regional, age, social dialects in play).

News & documentaries and non-fiction non-autobiographic books are pretty safe sources though.

Another pitfall I forgot to mention is imitating slang. If you use it correctly it makes you sound a lot more natural. However keep in mind that the book/anime/manga/drama you're using might have been written 10+ years ago or by some old person trying to sound hip. Formally trying to learn slang will only ensure that you're out of date. cowabunga.. I recommend waiting on slang until you make Japanese friends from whom you can learn it.

oops, I was a little too late.　I remembered about the comedians after I posted. And true. Manga Japanese is sometimes not even Japanese. Probably not suitable for sentence mining.

Musashi Wrote:I remember I asked once "why won't you tell me?" And she's like "well then it makes you sound rude... like this it's more cuuute!" :O So there you have the reason. They purpously feminize you turning you in a トトロ

LOL. But not really, when I think about it.

*ponders a bit more*

Are you f#$!ing serious? Sallmost like hiding checks because she wants to spend money on herself or never telling you that your long lost mother was still alive so she could have you all to herself, or never telling a slave-like creature that it was really a man.

Okay not that serious by still a huge WTF. "No want man want kyute"


Strange...

Jarvik7 Wrote:NANDEYANEN

You left this in romaji.

Quote:すごく訛ってる方言

But you typed this as kanji.

I have no idea what any of it mean, though.

Just thought it was strange.