Hey guys,

Here in Tae Kim's http://www.guidetojapanese.org/hiragana.html, he says "it should be pronounced like / ay / (as in "acorn") and not just a long / e /. " about long vowel e.

So, I became confused and checked Smart.fm pronunciation for 2 words I know: 大学生 (だいがくせい) and きれい:
http://smart.fm/items/318479-dai-ga-kuse-i
http://smart.fm/items/436118-kirei

You can notice that pronunciations of the end of both are different!

What's the deal?
Thanks.

Having just listened to the samples you gave, I don't notice that the pronunciations are different. Are you referring to the difference in pitch?

~J

woodwojr Wrote:Having just listened to the samples you gave, I don't notice that the pronunciations are different. Are you referring to the difference in pitch?

~J

Am I imagining that きれい end is pronounced えい and 大学生 end is ええ？

Is this too obvious and I'm really newbie?

I asked about this on lang-8, and some Japanese person said that he could not think of any word where えい would be pronounced anything other than ee.

Thanks guys
These little confusions can be somewhat problems for a beginner

I think it might be the English equivalent of a and uh. Slightly different pronunciations... Few people notice the difference.