Hi all,

I have what is potentially a stupid question (and if so please feel free to ignore) about a particular aspect of pronunciation. I am having difficulty with words which have, what you might call "an n followed by an r sound". For example, the word 訓練, where you have ん followed by れ. I find that the ん sound finishes with the tongue already up on the roof of the mouth, and then when you try to make the れ sound by quickly striking the roof of the mouth; because of the ん, the tongue is sort of "stuck" up there already, and it's really hard to make the two sounds flow together.

Sorry if the desciption is a bit weird - I don't normally think in those terms when speaking; I just needed to put it into words somehow. I might be coming at this from the wrong angle entirely, but if anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks a lot.

I agree those words are difficult to pronounce. For example: 連絡　混乱

I find it easier to pronounce them if I think of the r as a l in those cases. I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do, though.

[Katsuo]

"ん" can be difficult to pronounce because it varies depending on the following sound. I made some more detailed comments in this thread.

For 訓練, I think the first "ん" is made as follows: Press the tip of the tongue against the upper front gums to make the "ん" sound; the "r" sound is created when it is pulled away, i.e. you do not strike the gums a second time. (The second "ん” in 訓練 is made by pulling the tongue backwards.)

Before r? The ん nasalizes the proceeding vowel, but isn't actually pronounced like the English n. Like the n in the French "bon."

The only way to really get solid pronunciation is to listen and practice. A lot.

関連のセクションへ連絡した。
かんれんの　せくしょんえ　れんらく　した。
http://smart.fm/explore/sentences?contex...A1&limit=5

店員（てんいん） is a good word to study, too. Two ん, no "n."
http://smart.fm/explore/sentences?keywor...7%E5%93%A1

So, how is ん really pronounced?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ph...raic_nasal has the technical details, but really all you have to do is pay attention to the different contexts in which ん is found:

-- At the end of an utterance 「すみません」
-- Before b, p, or m 「散歩」
-- Before t, d, or な-row n 「判断」「電脳」
-- Before k or g 「部分が」「なんか」
-- Before vowels, y, w, h, s, or r 「訓練」「千円」「店員」
-- Before z 「安全」

Don't worry too much about it though, though. Listen and imitate. Listen and imitate and good pronunciation follows.

I seem to pronounce it as "gur'ren" and the tip of my tongue is curled towards the back of my mouth. If I touch the roof of my mouth with my tongue already curled up, I can be ready to make the "ren" sound and pronounce that ん.
In Korean, which is my first language, it would sound like 굴렌.

[Katsuo]

wildweathel Wrote:-- At the end of an utterance 「すみません」
-- Before b, p, or m 「散歩」
-- Before t, d, or な-row n 「判断」「電脳」
-- Before k or g 「部分が」「なんか」
-- Before vowels, y, w, h, s, or r 「訓練」「千円」「店員」
-- Before z 「安全

"r" should be in the "t, d, n" row

wildweathel Wrote:Don't worry too much about it though, though. Listen and imitate. Listen and imitate and good pronunciation follows.

Not automatically. If you don't read some explanation you may not realize what you are hearing. Even after living in Japan for 2 years and conversing mostly in Japanese every day (in addition to watching Japanese TV and playing Japanese video games), I still pronounced 千円 as せんねん and 人 as "he-to"; I didn't realize what I was doing until I finally read a description of the Japanese pronunciation structure.

(Of course you have to listen and imitate a lot too, but reading an explanation can help a lot.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:人 as "he-to"

Really? The sound of ひ in words like 人 and 必要 really struck me pretty immediately. In my japanese class (I take it at college for the minor to be on paper ), everyone, even the teacher (who is actually an indian woman, not a native japanese) pronounces it incorrectly. It's always onna no heeto.

If any of you don't have enough listening to know what I'm talking about: when you listen to the word 女の人 or 必要, the ひ in them isn't pronounced hi/hee... it almost sound like し, but it's more of a whispered sound.

sethg Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:人 as "he-to"

Really? The sound of ひ in words like 人 and 必要 really struck me pretty immediately.

Good for you. I wasn't so lucky or attentive. Of course you can always find anyone to say "Oh yeah, that's easy, I didn't need to study it that much" but that doesn't mean it applies to everyone.

I try to just be as mindless about it as possible, just listen and mimic. Most of the time, the physical discomfort of something like 訓練 makes me think about it, and the more I think about it, the harder it is. A lot of those words I just had to be slow and deliberate in my mimicry, then proceed from there to adjust, making the end of the first syllable softer, being more forceful with the beginning of the second, then speeding it up. Hope that makes sense--obviously just using 訓練 as the example.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Good for you.

Thanks!

sethg Wrote:If any of you don't have enough listening to know what I'm talking about: when you listen to the word 女の人 or 必要, the ひ in them isn't pronounced hi/hee... it almost sound like し, but it's more of a whispered sound.

I found this massively confusing for the longest time. "あのしと"？ なに？ It eventually dawned on me from context and experience, but sethg's post is the first time in many years of (sporadic self-) study I've seen it mentioned, let alone explained.

yudantaiteki Wrote:If you don't read some explanation you may not realize what you are hearing....I didn't realize what I was doing until I finally read a description of the Japanese pronunciation structure.

Exactly. I'm going to be doing some reading on the Japanese pronunciation structure soonest. Of course, I'm very up to speed with English pronunciation, and I still have this same problem with English words I've read but not heard...

BJohnsen Wrote:

sethg Wrote:If any of you don't have enough listening to know what I'm talking about: when you listen to the word 女の人 or 必要, the ひ in them isn't pronounced hi/hee... it almost sound like し, but it's more of a whispered sound.

I found this massively confusing for the longest time. "あのしと"？ なに？ It eventually dawned on me from context and experience, but sethg's post is the first time in many years of (sporadic self-) study I've seen it mentioned, let alone explained.

I realised this one day out of the blue, not by listening to it being said but by listening to myself say words that use it and realising that I naturally made quite a different sound to produce it. I love the way it sounds!

greg_225, it`s not difficult to pronounce. The reason is that you are using English "N" sound to pronounce Japanese word. English sounds are much milder and smoother compared to other languages.
Katsuo, explained how to produce harder "N" farely well. If you try to imitate russian accent in english, you`ll get the idea of how it should sound.