大きさ兆候や大きさ違うの音を示すか？どう明らかのですか？英語のアクセントに分かられるの怪我をしてはどうですか？
いつ日本語の文章を作っているが簡単になりますの？？

what does an english accent sound like to a japanese person?
what are the biggest giveaways and different sounds made? how obvious is it, and what are the areas that most harm people understanding what someone with an english accent is trying to say?

One thing I noticed in most English-speaking people speaking Japanese is that they tend to pronounce し like the shi in ship for something, like 教室, or the じ in 実, when it should be the shi in sheep.

It tends to be the vowels in general - people seem to forget Japanese has only 5 vowels, not the 11-20 English has

Instead, for italian people japanese accent is simple.

As Japanese, Italian have only 5 vocals.

典型的外国人アクセントというと、私の場合、母音・子音中心の発音がまず気になります。実際、英語話者の多くは日本語のモーラというものを正しく理解していないように見受けられます。通常、日本語母語話者がひとつのモーラを子音と母音の組に分けて捉えることはありません。ですが多くの英語母語話者は、子音をまず発音してから母音へとスムーズに移行するように思います。

たとえば「soon」という単語をゆっくりと発音してみてください。「ssssooooon」のようになりませんか？外国語があまり得意でない日本人に同様のことをさせると、普通は「すーーーん」のようになります。違いがわかりにくいかもしれませんが、日本語母語話者にとっては、子音や母音というものが心理的に存在しませんので、「す」の子音を伸ばすという概念自体、意味をなしません。

確かにローマ字で書くと「su」となりますので、あたかも子音の「s」を発音してから母音「u」を発音するかのように思えるかも知れません。ですが、実際には日本語の子音と母音はほぼ同時に発音されます。子音の「s」を口に出す瞬間には、もうすでに唇や舌などが「u」の用意をしていなければなりませんし、子音と母音のどちらを先に発音するかという点もまったく意識されません。「s -> u」ではなくて、むしろ「su = au = s+u = u+s = す」のように理解するとよいかもしれません。

今あげた例では「す」だけを取り上げましたが、実は希な例外を除いてほぼすべてのモーラに同様のことが成り立ちます。たとえば「か」という音を英語話者に発音させますと、普通は「k」を発音したあとに「a」へと口の形を変えて移行すると思います。ですが実際には日本語の「か」という音は「k」と「a」が混ぜ合わさった音ですので、発音途中で口の形を変える必要はありません。

「はなす」という単語を発音する際には、口の形は３回だけしか変化しません。というのも３つしかモーラが含まれていないからです。「h -> a -> n -> a -> s -> u」というように連続的に口や舌を使い分ける必要はなく、１モーラ内の子音と母音を同時に発音しながら「は -> な -> す」と進んでいきます。

これ以外の点ですと、外国人の話す日本語にはピッチの使い方に特徴があると思います。お笑い芸人などがイギリス人の日本語を真似るときには、多くの場合、音程の使い方をわざと間違えることで外国人らしさを演出します。それだけピッチアクセントに英語話者の話す日本語の特徴がよく表れているということなのでしょうね。masamanさんがすでにこのフォーラムのどこかで解説されていたと思いますので、詳しいことはそちらを参照して下さい。

もちろん地域によってピッチアクセントはまちまちですので、外国人がそこまで詳しく学ぶ必要はないという意見があるのも理解できます。いわゆるガイジン発音で満足できるのでしたら、ピッチアクセントを完全に無視しても構わないかもしれませんね。ですが母語話者のように話したいのであれば、最も大切な点と言っても過言ではないと思います。各方言のアクセントは日本語の文法ととても深い部分で繋がっています。もちろん私はただの素人ですので正確なことは言えません。ですが個人的には、方言間でピッチアクセントが見かけ上大変異なっているからといって、完全に無視してよいというわけではなさそうに思えます。もしかすると、なにかひとつの方言をまねてみるとよいかもしれません。

ところで話はかわりますが、日本語の間違いを指摘したほうがいいですか？IceCreamさんが希望するのでしたら、喜んで自然な日本語に修正しますよ。

I think one of the biggest giveaways is the consonant-vowel based pronunciation, i.e., most of the Anglophones don't speak moras properly. In general, Japanese doesn't separate a more into a consonant and a vowel, but it seems English speakers tend to pronounce a consonant first then glide into a vowel in a mora.

For example, when you say "soon" very very slowly, you may say, "ssssssssooooooooooon." But monolingual Japanese people usually say "すーーーーーーーーーーん." If you're already familiar with moras, it's obvious why the Japanese don't stretch out the "s" consonant; there's no such things as consonants or vowels in a native speaker's mind.

In roman-ji, you may write す as "su," which might delude you into believing you can pronounce it properly if you say "s" and then glide into "u" like you do in English. But this is totally wrong. In Japanese, you pronounce the consonant and the vowel simultaneously. When you pronounce "s," your mouth/lips/tongues/whatever should be ready to say "u" or already saying the vowel. So, す is not "s -> u." It's like "su = us = s+u = u+s = す."

The same goes for almost all moras. For instance, か is a mixture of "k" and "a" so your mouth doesn't change its shape while pronouncing the mora; English speakers tend to start with "k" with a neutral mouth position and then change the shape of the mouth to pronounce "a."

When you pronounce the word はなす, you only need to change your mouth shape three times because there are only three moras. It seems to me Anglophones tend to say it by moving their mouth/lips/tongue smoothly as they sequentially pronounce "h -> a -> n -> a -> s -> u." But it should be "は -> な -> す," and the constant and vowel in each mora should be pronounced at the same time.

Another big giveaway is pitch. Actually, when a Japanese comedian fakes a Briton speaking Japanese, he or she often mimics the foreign pitch patterns. I think masaman already talked about it in another thread, so I omit the detail here.

Some may argue that pitch accents vary from region to region so foreigners don't need to learn them. I can agree with that if you don't mind foreign accents. But if you want to be better at pronunciation and sound like a native speaker, I think it's one of the most important aspects. Every regional accent follows certain rules that stem from Japanese grammar. Different dialects may sound drastically different, but it seems that their pitch accents are linguistically closely related. Maybe mimicking your favorite dialect is very good to reduce your foreign accent and acquire a natural speech pattern. Don't quote me on this though. I could be totally wrong.

By the way, do you want me to nitpick your Japanese? I can be your harshest Grammar Nazi on this forum if you want.

magamo Wrote:典型的外国人アクセントというと、私の場合、母音・子音中心の発音がまず気になります。実際、英語話者の多くは日本語のモーラというものを正しく理解していないように見受けられます。通常、日本語母語話者がひとつのモーラを子音と母音の組に分けて捉えることはありません。ですが多くの英語母語話者は、子音をまず発音してから母音へとスムーズに移行するように思います。

たとえば「soon」という単語をゆっくりと発音してみてください。「ssssooooon」のようになりませんか？外国語があまり得意でない日本人に同様のことをさせると、普通は「すーーーん」のようになります。違いがわかりにくいかもしれませんが、日本語母語話者にとっては、子音や母音というものが心理的に存在しませんので、「す」の子音を伸ばすという概念自体、意味をなしません。

確かにローマ字で書くと「su」となりますので、あたかも子音の「s」を発音してから母音「u」を発音するかのように思えるかも知れません。ですが、実際には日本語の子音と母音はほぼ同時に発音されます。子音の「s」を口に出す瞬間には、もうすでに唇や舌などが「u」の用意をしていなければなりませんし、子音と母音のどちらを先に発音するかという点もまったく意識されません。「s -> u」ではなくて、むしろ「su = au = s+u = u+s = す」のように理解するとよいかもしれません。

今あげた例では「す」だけを取り上げましたが、実は希な例外を除いてほぼすべてのモーラに同様のことが成り立ちます。たとえば「か」という音を英語話者に発音させますと、普通は「k」を発音したあとに「a」へと口の形を変えて移行すると思います。ですが実際には日本語の「か」という音は「k」と「a」が混ぜ合わさった音ですので、発音途中で口の形を変える必要はありません。

「はなす」という単語を発音する際には、口の形は３回だけしか変化しません。というのも３つしかモーラが含まれていないからです。「h -> a -> n -> a -> s -> u」というように連続的に口や舌を使い分ける必要はなく、１モーラ内の子音と母音を同時に発音しながら「は -> な -> す」と進んでいきます。

これ以外の点ですと、外国人の話す日本語にはピッチの使い方に特徴があると思います。お笑い芸人などがイギリス人の日本語を真似るときには、多くの場合、音程の使い方をわざと間違えることで外国人らしさを演出します。それだけピッチアクセントに英語話者の話す日本語の特徴がよく表れているということなのでしょうね。masamanさんがすでにこのフォーラムのどこかで解説されていたと思いますので、詳しいことはそちらを参照して下さい。

もちろん地域によってピッチアクセントはまちまちですので、外国人がそこまで詳しく学ぶ必要はないという意見があるのも理解できます。いわゆるガイジン発音で満足できるのでしたら、ピッチアクセントを完全に無視しても構わないかもしれませんね。ですが母語話者のように話したいのであれば、最も大切な点と言っても過言ではないと思います。各方言のアクセントは日本語の文法ととても深い部分で繋がっています。もちろん私はただの素人ですので正確なことは言えません。ですが個人的には、方言間でピッチアクセントが見かけ上大変異なっているからといって、完全に無視してよいというわけではなさそうに思えます。もしかすると、なにかひとつの方言をまねてみるとよいかもしれません。

ところで話はかわりますが、日本語の間違いを指摘したほうがいいですか？IceCreamさんが希望するのでしたら、喜んで自然な日本語に修正しますよ。

I think one of the biggest giveaways is the consonant-vowel based pronunciation, i.e., most of the Anglophones don't speak moras properly. In general, Japanese doesn't separate a more into a consonant and a vowel, but it seems English speakers tend to pronounce a consonant first then glide into a vowel in a mora.

For example, when you say "soon" very very slowly, you may say, "ssssssssooooooooooon." But monolingual Japanese people usually say "すーーーーーーーーーーん." If you're already familiar with moras, it's obvious why the Japanese don't stretch out the "s" consonant; there's no such things as consonants or vowels in a native speaker's mind.

In roman-ji, you may write す as "su," which might delude you into believing you can pronounce it properly if you say "s" and then glide into "u" like you do in English. But this is totally wrong. In Japanese, you pronounce the consonant and the vowel simultaneously. When you pronounce "s," your mouth/lips/tongues/whatever should be ready to say "u" or already saying the vowel. So, す is not "s -> u." It's like "su = us = s+u = u+s = す."

The same goes for almost all moras. For instance, か is a mixture of "k" and "a" so your mouth doesn't change its shape while pronouncing the mora; English speakers tend to start with "k" with a neutral mouth position and then change the shape of the mouth to pronounce "a."

When you pronounce the word はなす, you only need to change your mouth shape three times because there are only three moras. It seems to me Anglophones tend to say it by moving their mouth/lips/tongue smoothly as they sequentially pronounce "h -> a -> n -> a -> s -> u." But it should be "は -> な -> す," and the constant and vowel in each mora should be pronounced at the same time.

Another big giveaway is pitch. Actually, when a Japanese comedian fakes a Briton speaking Japanese, he or she often mimics the foreign pitch patterns. I think masaman already talked about it in another thread, so I omit the detail here.

Some may argue that pitch accents vary from region to region so foreigners don't need to learn them. I can agree with that if you don't mind foreign accents. But if you want to be better at pronunciation and sound like a native speaker, I think it's one of the most important aspects. Every regional accent follows certain rules that stem from Japanese grammar. Different dialects may sound drastically different, but it seems that their pitch accents are linguistically closely related. Maybe mimicking your favorite dialect is very good to reduce your foreign accent and acquire a natural speech pattern. Don't quote me on this though. I could be totally wrong.

By the way, do you want me to nitpick your Japanese? I can be your harshest Grammar Nazi on this forum if you want.

BRAVO, well written.

Very interesting. Thanks magamo.

Aside from what magamo wrote problem areas are:

- らりるれろ which is not a sound English has.
- words like 範囲 (はんい) where the ん sound kind of disappears. This is hard to pronounce.
- words that go from ん into らりるれろ example 混乱（こんらん）. English speakers tend to make the らりるれろ into an r sound.
- over-pronunciation of particles. Particles are generally softer/quieter than the rest of the sentence.
- adding sentence stress to Japanese when it doesn't have it, at least not in the same we English has. (EG. Do YOU like education?)
- asking questions when speaking casually. The pitch goes up at the end and it isn't like English.
- speaking with the mora each having the same length of time.
- katakana words being similar to their English counterparts (this is my pet hate I use to study with a guy who would just say the English word as if this is more correct).
- generally over extending sounds. in particular た.
- knowing when to pause (occurs typically after particles)

That's all I can think of right now. If you find some beginners Japanese you can hear all the stuff they do wrong. It's useful because they are doing it really badly so its easy to identify the problem areas. You can then check that you are not making the same mistakes even on a much smaller scale.

IceCream Wrote:大きさ兆候や大きさ違うの音を示すか？どう明らかのですか？英語のアクセントに分かられるの怪我をしてはどうですか？
いつ日本語の文章を作っているが簡単になりますの？？

You're killing me. Because I see this kind of writing every day, only the other way around. Working for an international (American) company, it's part of my job to correct the english correspondence of my japanese colleagues. Here's one pearl I read recently, concerning a computer system crash which was going to be reproduced at the support center:

Quote:about the environmental reproduction was it delicious?

Translated to Japanese, it makes perfect sense:

Quote:環境の再現は、うまくいきましたか？

This was one of the easier ones. More often I need to ask the person in question what he intended to write, because the english is all mashed up. But I'm learning.

I notice both in the various drama's I have cycling. In GTO, the last episode has a foreigner speaking in Japanese and it's jarring. He speaks well, but you can tell something is off. Probably the bearded guy at the beginning of Gokusen 3 is another example.

On the opposite side, hearing Japanese speak English in dramas is also jarring. Good examples that come to mind is in GTO episode 2 where the smart kid speaks to the foreigner in English, and various examples in Hana Yori Dango. The accent is, well, you can hear the kana at work.

Now that I think about it, I don't have many examples (audio wise) of English accents in Japanese nor of Japanese accents in English. There is Ken Watanabe, but he's the only Japanese actor I can think of that speaks in English quite a bit. Magamo, do you have interesting links (audio or youtube type) that better demonstrate the case about English accents in Japanese (or vice versa)?

magamo Wrote:In roman-ji, you may write す as "su," which might delude you into believing you can pronounce it properly if you say "s" and then glide into "u" like you do in English. But this is totally wrong. In Japanese, you pronounce the consonant and the vowel simultaneously. When you pronounce "s," your mouth/lips/tongues/whatever should be ready to say "u" or already saying the vowel. So, す is not "s -> u." It's like "su = us = s+u = u+s = す."

This is why I hate transliteration and romaji ducks everthing up and doesn't force the learner to stay away from their native tongue.
So I believe when learning phonemes they should be learnt by the ear --> character only, instead of the jumbled up ear <-> transliteration / romanisation / romaji <-> character.

But it is unfortunate that transliteration is the first stage in learning languages even though you can get better later on, it's best to start off as a child would. That is, hearing the sound and associating them with characters, or in english/korean say, a build up of the different pronouncations in words over time.

Some may disagree, but finding a good word in English (or your own native language) to demonstrate the sound does help in part. As pointed out in a thread about Remembering the Kana, this doesn't work if you're using a different accent of English (Australian versus US versus Britain) so use it has drawbacks.

Something tells me though that those that use kana/kanji and shadow have less pronounced accents. Those that learn with Romaji have the most pronounced. That's a SWAG though.

magamo Wrote:In Japanese, you pronounce the consonant and the vowel simultaneously.

I think this is wrong. You can't pronounce the 's' and the 'u' of す at the same time, and the same with other examples you mentioned. The tongue moves between the two sounds.

In English you sometimes draw out vowels and sometimes consonants, so English speakers have a tendency to do both (even when speaking a foreign language in which it is incorrect). In Japanese you don't ever hold the consonant in a word like す, so Japanese people don't do it. It has nothing to do with them being said at the same time, it's just how fast the tongue and the shape of the mouth moves.

Nukemarine Wrote:I
Now that I think about it, I don't have many examples (audio wise) of English accents in Japanese nor of Japanese accents in English. There is Ken Watanabe, but he's the only Japanese actor I can think of that speaks in English quite a bit. Magamo, do you have interesting links (audio or youtube type) that better demonstrate the case about English accents in Japanese (or vice versa)?

I was watching a show called Garo the other day. There a was guy speaking Japanese. He seemed to be foreign. At first there was something off about his speak, but as the show went on, he seemed to be getting better at speaking. By the end of the episode he sounded like a Japanese guy with a deep voice.

Tzadeck Wrote:I think this is wrong. You can't pronounce the 's' and the 'u' of す at the same time, and the same with other examples you mentioned. The tongue moves between the two sounds.

I just tried doing this. It sounds like zu.

woelpad Wrote:You're killing me...

つまりIceCreamさんの日本語は８年以上英語を勉強した日本人の英語と同等ということですか。結構すごいことだとおもいませんか？そもそも読み書きの「書き」は恐らく言語活動の中で最も難しい分野でしょうし。私は毎日流暢に話す非母語話者と日本語と英語で話をしますが、「書く」となると途端にたどたどしくなる人がほとんどです。

私がしょっちゅう出会う外国人的な日本語の例を下に書いておきますね。

So that means IceCream's Japanese is as good as your colleagues' English. That's pretty amazing, considering your Japanese colleagues have learned English for 8+ years (assuming they have Bachelor degrees), don't you think? Besides, writing is arguably the most difficult aspect of language to master. I talk with non-native Japanese/English speakers everyday, and their Japanese and English are pretty good. But when it comes to writing, most of them suck incredibly hard.

As for broken Japanese, I always hear these:

それは助けません！ (It doesn't help! 役に立ちません！)
それは助けられません。 (It can't be helped... しょうがないよ…)

Seriously, who taught them "help" must be 助ける?

Nukemarine Wrote:Magamo, do you have interesting links (audio or youtube type) that better demonstrate the case about English accents in Japanese (or vice versa)?

多分これが最も有名な動画じゃないかな。恐らく動画で英語を話している彼は実は日英バイリンガルで、わざと日本人的アクセントを披露しているような気がします。

Probably this is one of the most famous videos about the typical Japanese accent. I think he's an English-Japanese bilingual and deliberately speaking English the way your average Japanese would.

liosama Wrote:But it is unfortunate that transliteration is the first stage in learning languages

英語圏ではそう、ということですよね？日本人は一応きちんとABCから入るので、カタカナで英語の初歩を学んだりしません。残念なことに、会話におけるアルファベットにあたる音素についてはあまり教えてくれないのですが…　音素や文字体系を初心者にきちんと教えない外国語教師は本当に酷いことをしていると思います。

in the Anglosphere, right? I don't think the Japanese learn English using kana at school. The alphabet is the first thing English learners learn. Unfortunately, though, they don't teach phonemes, which are pretty much the same as the "alphabet" of spoken language. I do believe teachers who don't begin with phonetics and the alphabet are doing a disservice rather than helping students.

Tzadeck Wrote:I think this is wrong...

長くなりそうなので英語だけで（笑）

Then try pronounce は properly. I don't think your mouth should move even a bit.

Actually I think "pronouncing a consonant and a vowel at the same time" is also kind of wrong because there aren't two ingredients in a mora per se. For example, when you say な, your tongue moves as you pronounce it, but I don't think that's because you glide into a vowel. Your tongue moves because that's the way な is supposed to be pronounced. There doesn't seem to exist a clear line that separates a consonant and a vowel in a Japanese mora, at least in native speakers' minds.

As for す, of course you can't make an unvoiced sound if you do it the English way. What I mean is the extremely fast sequence of unvoiced "s" and voiced "u" is kind of mixed up, and your mouth should be ready to pronounce "u". There should be a tiny time lag, but it doesn't seem to divide the mora into the two parts. The consonant part is heavily influenced by the vowel, if you will. When you start saying す, your mouth is already ready to say "u" part, and your tongue and other parts shouldn't move a lot to say "u". Of course they move a little bit, but that's because that's the way す is pronounced.

If you do a little research, you'll know consonant parts of the same sound series in Japanese can be phonetically different. I think I already posted multiple times on this forum, but the consonant used in は, へ, ほ and the one used in ひ are represented by different IPA symbols. The "r"s in ら and り are phonetically different. The "b"s in ば and び are different. Apparently not all differences stem from the mouth shape required to pronounce vowels, but thinking a mora as a combination of one consonant and one vowel sounds kind of ridiculous to me. Then again, I could be completely wrong...

Anyway, the concept of pronouncing a Japanese consonant alone doesn't make sense in most cases because without the vowel attached to it, you can't decide what the proper mouth shape is. And you pronounce a vowel nearly at the beginning of a mora. Technically you could say the sound in a Japanese mora shifts very very quickly from a consonant to a vowel if you ignore the fact that your mouth is in a proper position such that the vowel is easily pronounced when you make the consonant. But I still don't think the consonant+vowel concept is intuitive.

Am I making sense?

IceCream Wrote:Tzadeck, i think Magamo was saying more that the shape of the mouth doesn't change between s->u in す. The s+u together are considered as 1 sound, not 2 the way it is in english, and can't be split from each other. In the english word soon, we change our mouth shape to go from s->oo(u). They are perceived as 2 different sounds, which are divisable, not 1 sound that can't be divided up.

私の言いたかったことが４行ちょいで上手にまとまっていますね…　私の長文なんだったんだろ…

She sums it up nicely in a little more than four lines, and my looooong post confused others...

I feel bad. With Magamo here　writing bi-lingual posts, it feels like I should at least attempt the same.

Unfortunately:

気持ち悪い。ここにマガモさんが英語と日本語で提示板を書きたら僕も書こうと考えている。

残念だから：　僕の日本語のレブルは下手だ。

Starting at 4:40 　(日本語に慣れてきたアメリカ人)

It's a pretty realistic example of how some Americans, not all, might speak in Japanese. It's mostly in fun.

magamo Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:I think this is wrong...

長くなりそうなので英語だけで（笑）

Then try pronounce は properly. I don't think your mouth should move even a bit.

Actually I think "pronouncing a consonant and a vowel at the same time" is also kind of wrong because there aren't two ingredients in a mora per se. For example, when you say な, your tongue moves as you pronounce it, but I don't think that's because you glide into a vowel. Your tongue moves because that's the way な is supposed to be pronounced. There doesn't seem to exist a clear line that separates a consonant and a vowel in a Japanese more, at least in native speakers' minds.

As for す, of course you can't make a unvoiced sound if you do it the English way. What I mean is the extremely fast sequence of unvoiced "s" and voiced "u" is kind of mixed up, and your mouth should be ready to pronounce "u". There should be a tiny time lag, but it doesn't seem to divide the mora into the two parts. The consonant part is heavily influenced by the vowel, if you will. When you start saying す, your mouth is already ready to say "u" part, and your tongue and other parts shouldn't move a lot to say "u". Of course they move a little bit, but that's because that's the way す is pronounced.

If you research a bit, you'll know consonant parts of the same sound series in Japanese can be phonetically different. I think I already posted multiple times on this forum, but the consonant used in は, へ, ほ and the one used in ひ are represented by different IPA symbols. The "r"s in ら and り are phonetically different. The "b"s in ば and び are different. Apparently not all differences stem from the mouth shape required to pronounce vowels, but thinking a mora as a combination of one consonant and one vowel sounds kind of ridiculous to me. Then again, I could be completely wrong...

Anyway, the concept of pronouncing a Japanese consonant alone doesn't make sense in most cases because without the vowel attached to it, you can't decide what the proper mouth shape is. And you pronounce a vowel nearly at the beginning of a mora. Technically you could say the sound in a Japanese mora shifts very very quickly from a consonant to a vowel if you ignore the fact that your mouth is in a proper position such that the vowel is easily pronounced when you make the consonant. But I still think the consonant+vowel concept isn't, at least, intuitive.

Am I making sense?

Not being a native Japanese myself, I nevertheless was also under the impression that the consonant/vowel concept wouldn't be intuitive for a Japanese person. After all, the sounds of the language are conceptualized as being divided up into mora as it's the most useful and simple way to divide up Japanese. Yet, since vowels and consonants refer to the shape of your mouth, it seems to me that they therefor are useful in describing both Japanese and English when you want to distinguish these different shapes. In regular situations it's just that they're not as conceptually useful to a Japanese speaker (since they don't come up in the written Japanese language, and they don't need to come up).

I also agree that there aren't two ingredients to a mora. Actually, with a mora like す I would say that there are dozens of ingredients. That's because when you pronounce it you start using your vocal chords as you move the muscles in your mouth. You mouth goes through a series of very similar rapidly successive different shapes until you arrive at the final position of your mouth, and the whole time you are still producing sound. Each individual sound, of course, is slightly similar respective to the shape of your mouth.

Something like は, on the other hand, doesn't do that. You put your mouth into a shape and if you just throw in your vocal chords, viola, the sound is made. Incidentally, the 'h' sound in は is impossible to pronounce on its own (since it requires your vocal chords), whereas the 's' sound in す can be pronounced without them. So, you can't hold the 'h' sound in は in English either. (I realize I should be using IPA symbols or a similar system to portray what I'm saying more accurately, but I don't know them!)

I think we for the most part agree, I just thought that describing the sounds as being pronounced at the same time was too vast an oversimplification to let go.

[Side note: My English writing is getting awful, and it took me a long time to get silly grammar things right in this. Is it because I've lived in Japan too long, or because I've been reading my student's papers too often!?]

IceCream Wrote:すれば本当に有り難いをします！！
i'm still having lots of problems with producing my own gramattical sentences, even though i can understand fairly decently grammar in other peoples.
And Woelpad: hahah すみません！ thats pretty scary since i only used the dictionary for the 1st sentence, and the rest came from SRSing. hmm, i guess time + more vocabulary might cure it....

了解。徹底的にしごくので覚悟して下さい。っとそのまえに、二日酔いを何とかしてきます。もうちょっと待って下さいね。

K. I'll correct every single error you made/make! But wait a moment. I'm having a hangover, and it's not the best time to be pedantic.

Nukemarine Wrote:I feel bad. With Magamo here　writing bi-lingual posts, it feels like I should at least attempt the same.

Unfortunately:

気持ち悪い。ここにマガモさんが英語と日本語で提示板を書きたら僕も書こうと考えている。

残念だから：　僕の日本語のレブルは下手だ。

いえいえ、無理に日本語で書こうとしなくてもいいと思いますよ。早い段階からアウトプットの練習をすることが本当にいいことかどうかわかりませんし。そもそも日英二カ国語で書くこと自体たいしたことではないです。

If you don't feel comfortable writing bilingual posts, you don't have to. I don't know if it's good to practice writing when you don't have enough vocabulary. You don't have to feel bad either. It's not that big of a deal to post bilingually anyway.

@Tzadeck

きれいにまとめて下さってありがとうございます。意図をもっと上手に伝える練習をしないといけないと痛感しました。

ところで「h」の音ですが、口から息をはくとそんな感じの音になりませんか？手が凍えたときに息を「ハー」っとかけている日本人を見たことがあるかもしれませんが、ちょうどあの音が「h」に相当するような気がします。

Thanks for your lucid explanation. Obviously my wording was poor.

By the way, I thought you could hold the "h" sound by only pushing the air out of your mouth... Haven't you seen a Japanese person doing this when his or her hands get cold and is trying to warm them by saying "hhhhhhhh" to the hands? Native Japanese speakers don't consider this sound to be a phoneme, but I guess it's the same sound as the "consonant" you're making when saying は.

IceCream Wrote:

thermal Wrote:- asking questions when speaking casually. The pitch goes up at the end and it isn't like English.

mm, what do you mean? how is it different from English?

Well in English we go up for a yes or no question and down for a non-yes no question.

Even for a yes no question we do it differently. I can't really explain it. I just learnt to copy what I have heard a million times. Sometimes it is quite similar (eg. おいしい？) to English and sometimes the pitch goes right down and back to where it starts (eg. どう思う？) and sometimes it starts much higher than it finishes but does rise slightly at the end (eg. 大丈夫？)

We do some similar things in English, but they will be on different expressions. I don't know how it works for either unfortunately.

@IceCream

You asked for it. So I nitpick your grammar. Here it comes!

Title:
I can easily understand what you're trying to say, but it should read something like:

"英語のアクセントは日本人にはどんなふうに聞こえますか？"
or more formally "英語話者のアクセントは日本人にはどのように聞こえますか？"

The point is that XはYを聞きます is like "X listens to Y" while XはYに聞こえます is "X sounds like Y." You're asking "An English accent sounds like what?" so you use the latter sentence structure. This rule is too simplistic, but I think it's enough for beginners. By the way, the reading of 英語話者 is えいごわしゃ, which means "English speaker." Also, you can find a lot of info and links about は vs. が here. I also explained a little about the particles. If you want to get better at the problematic particles, you might want to take a look at the thread.

The first post:
大きさ兆候や大きさ違うの音を示すか？ should read:

"どんなところに外国人の特徴が最も顕著に現れますか？またどんな音が最も特徴的でしょうか。"

I think this is quite difficult if you're doing English to Japanese translation. So I think you can ignore these advanced grammar points for the time being until your Japanese gets better through tons of input. But if you want to take a peek at the advanced grammar rules now, here it is:

In general, the sense of "giveaway" as in "The way she talked to him was a dead giveaway that they were more than just friends." isn't expressed by a noun in Japanese. So you have to create an idiomatic sentence on the fly without relying on the original English sentence structure. For example, the giveaway example I just gave would be like 彼女の彼に対する口のきき方からして、二人が友達以上の関係にあるのは明らかだった。A somewhat literal translation of this Japanese sentence is "It was obvious from the way she talked to him that they were more than just friends."

Also, 顕著に（けんちょに）might be a little difficult word. You can substitute よく in this case so it reads "...最もよく現れますか？".

どう明らかのですか？ would be better if it read "どう明らかですか？" If you want to make it even more idiomatic, I'd say, "違いはどれぐらい明らかですか？," but it might be overkill.

As for 英語のアクセントに分かられるの怪我をしてはどうですか？, this is a good example of broken Japanese woelpad was talking about. I'm pretty used to broken Japanese and can (barely) understand what you're trying to say. But probably it doesn't make sense to the average native Japanese speaker. Apparently the grammar required to create a natural sentence is too advanced, so I'll just give an idiomatic translation here:

英語話者が訛った日本語を話すときに、もっともコミュニケーションを妨げると思われる発音上のポイントは何でしょうか。

As you can see, it's quite different from the original English sentence. But this is what I would say if I were to say "What are the areas that most harm people's understanding what someone with an English accent is trying to say?" in Japanese.

Is this post a bit daunting? Of course it should be because most of the grammar points I pointed out here aren't necessary unless you want to sound 120% natural. But I'm pretty sure these things become quite obvious to you if you keep learning.

Anyway, I'll correct other sentences you wrote in this thread here:

すれば本当に有り難いをします！！ should read してくれたら本当に有り難いです！！
二日酔いは早く治す方がいいと望みます、と、昨夜は楽しいでした should read 昨夜は楽しかったんだ。二日酔いが早く治るといいですね。

二日酔いは早く治す方がいい is perfectly idiomatic, but it means "You better cure a hangover soon," so it doesn't go well with "I hope." "Hope you get better soon" is "早く良くなるといいね (casual)," "早く治ることをお祈りしています (a little formal)," or something along those lines.

Not really on topic, but I have to warn jino123.

jino123 Wrote:Instead, for italian people japanese accent is simple.

As Japanese, Italian have only 5 vocals.

Unfortunately this is not true at all! It has nothing to do with the number of vocals. What is called アクセント in Japanese is something quite different from the meaning of "accento" in Italian. That makes for a pretty bad pronunciation in Italian people too, I think.

IceCream Wrote:thanks again for that Magamo! please can you remind me how to say "it always makes me laugh" again, cos that post is gone i think...

My pleasure.

As for the makes-me-laugh sentence, it's "pronoun+いつ+verb-ても+笑っちゃう."

For example, if you have a favorite comedy show and want to say, "This always makes me laugh!", it'll be これいつ見ても笑っちゃう. You can substitute 何回 for いつ, so you can say あれ何回読んでも笑っちゃう (assuming you're talking about something you read such as manga, and the book isn't here). If someone tells the same funny story again and if you still find it very funny, you can say, "それ何回聞いても笑っちゃう."

You can also use synonymous verbs such as 可笑しい (おかしい) instead of 笑っちゃう. You can find an example in this post. だめだ何回読んでも吹くｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ is following exactly the same grammar rule; 吹くwwww means ROLF.

だめだ is an interjection you use when you give up, by the way.

IceCream Wrote:thankyou! k, i think i got the grammar going ok, and i used this in my first lang 8 post, but someone corrected my sentence
他人の親切が時々びっくりした、でもいつ見つけても笑っちゃう
to
他人の親切に時々びっくりした, でもいつ見つけても笑顔になります
they said,
(「笑っちゃう」 can imply that you laugh at something in a negative way. If you think that's is a positive thing, 笑顔になる is more appropriate.

in the context i was using it, i meant smile more anyway, but is this right? would you usually use it if you were laughing at something negatively?

笑っちゃう is an informal version of 笑ってしまう, which literally means "can't help laughing," "burst out laughing in spite of myself" or something along those lines. So if you 笑ってしまう at someone's nice joke, that's because the joke was super hilarious. If you 笑ってしまう at someone's mistake, well, you get the picture. It's not necessarily negative, but "couldn't help but laugh" could imply "it was inappropriate," "shouldn't have done it," etc.

Also, I don't think you laugh at someone's kindness. When someone helped you out, it'll make you happy, and probably you "smile," I think.