In japanese? My personal vocabualry is practically still non-existent in japanese, but
the first word that comes to mind regarding this question is the japanese word for
fact. "Jijitsu", or something like it. Especially when paired with the plain be-verb "da". Jijitsu-da...man, if I try to say that fast as the japanese do, sometimes I feel like losing my tongue
So which word is the hardest to pronounce for you in japanese?

いただきま　>>頂きま
When I first started learning japanese this word tripped me so many times, now I can say it well with no problems.

I saw an item on Japanese TV once where they asked various newsreaders what were the words they dreaded seeing in the scripts they had to read. IIRC あたたかい was surprisingly high up the list given that it's a pretty common word.

いただきま, and あたたかい?
I never would've thought that these words would even be mentioned
pm215: Were they foreigners? It's just hard to believe that it would couse any
problems for a native japaense to prononuce あたたかい....

高所恐怖症　My girlfriend stumbled over this　once too...

あたたかい is indeed difficult for native speakers, which is why the contraction あったかい is so common.

Trivia no Izumi did a few shows on difficult words for news announcers to pronounce: I noted down the words one time they did that. (This is native Japanese news announcers, not foreigners):
10. kaseitansasha (火星探査車)(the mars rover)
9. atatakaku (暖かく) (warm)
8. rounyakunannyo (老若男女) (people of all ages)
7. shutsujou (出場) (appearance, performance)
6. tori no nada (sumo wrestler's name)
5. shiroshouzokushuudan (白装束集団??) (a religious cult)
4. torizatasareru (取りざたされる)
3. kakyakusen mangyonbongou (貨客船万景峰号) (a North Korean passenger ship)
2. shujutsuchuu (手術中) (in surgery)
1. kousokuzoushokuromonju (高速増殖炉もんじゅ) (name of a nuclear reactor)

いしきします　＞＞意識します is really a tongue twister for me. Also おちょこちょい　is another one I have trouble with ^^.

あたたかい was brought up pretty regularly in my old classes as an unpopular one, especially once you started adding to it. あたたくなかった being my favorite.

Yudantaiteki: yes, it was Trivia no Izumi. I'd just managed to track down an (unsorted) list by googling for the item name ("アナウンサーが最も発音しづらい言葉") but you've saved me the effort there.

(Speaking of TnI, I see they did another special in February this year, but I missed it :-( )

I don't like the られる conjugations 食べられる for example. And also when there is a short vowel sound and long vowel sound in the same word like 旅行 sometimes I accidently make them both short or both long or get them the wrong way round :$

btw most Japanese people I know say あったかい rather than あたたかい

For me, the hardest word to pronounce is 取締役. It is pronounced とりしまりやく。the way japanese pronounce it is very hard for me. Just ask a japanese person to say it and you'll see what i mean.

輸出している [ゆしゅつしている].This one always got to me in ko2001 the way they pronunce it is much different than when I usually sound it out.

That list sort of surprised me, then I remember that there are kanji that are super easy for members of this board to write that native Japanese claim up and down are very difficult. 林檎 for instance.

I do remember having a lot of difficulty with a Tae Kim sentence 食べ物が食べたくなかったけど食べたくなった。(probably wrote that wrong). Just different approaches and mindsets to the same language I guess.

Well, keep in mind that these are being pronounced in context, with the news reader reading a long story involving the compound. I'm sure all of them can do it fine if they concentrate and are only saying that one word.

(I think many Japanese would say 林檎 is difficult to write because it's not one they have to write very often since even if they write the word they'll write it in katakana. Only a very small percentage of Japanese people are interested in learning kanji just for the heck of it, the way a very high percentage of people on this message board are.)

I always have trouble with 完了.

I'm curious - was that list only hard to pronounce words? A couple of them seem like long, rare, intimidating mouthfuls to read live...but not necessarily difficult to pronounce. (What was that N. Korean boat??) Man, if I were an announcer, I'd definitely want an opportunity to read stuff over in advance. I know that I've been mispronouncing certain read-only English words for years...)

As for Japanese, I wasn't corrected early enough on ん sounds which made certain combinations tongue twisters for a while. (ん＋りょう, for eg） I thought it was great that ydtt described the various ん sounds in another thread. It's worth making sure you can produce the different ん　and が　nasally sounds from the outset.

ydtt Wrote:Only a very small percentage of Japanese people are interested in learning kanji just for the heck of it, the way a very high percentage of people on this message board are.

Oh? That's not my impression. Sure, a very few individuals seem to have a bit of a kanji fetish (collector types?), but most folks seem interested in learning kanji required for JLPT, university, novels, internet, games, news, work, lovers & spouses, survival in Japan, etc. :-)

Thora Wrote:Oh? That's not my impression. Sure, a very few individuals seem to have a bit of a kanji fetish (collector types?), but most folks seem interested in learning kanji required for JLPT, university, novels, internet, games, news, work, lovers & spouses, survival in Japan, etc. :-)

Yeah, I think most of the post-RTKers just learn kanji as we come across it or per specific goals, with a smaller percentage going on to do RTK3 and a rare few aiming for a billion kanji or something.

雰囲気,　笑われる, or　anyword that repeats itself is hard for me to say.

As for 漢字, I'm aiming for 4000 only because I am also learning Mandarin as well. ^__^
But I think 人名漢字 are important to know. (Maybe because I can't remember them without writing them out.)

gyuujuice Wrote:雰囲気,　笑われる, or　anyword that repeats itself is hard for me to say.

As for 漢字, I'm aiming for 4000 only because I am also learning Mandarin as well. ^__^
But I think 人名漢字 are important to know. (Maybe because I can't remember them without writing them out.)

same here.Exactly same thoughts!

I've used to find ごちぞうさま pretty hard to pronounce, since I couldn't remember if it was ごちぞう, ごちじょう, ごしそう, etc...
About all the others listed until now, no problem. Go figure.

Wait... Ta12121, are you studying Chinese as well?
Or was that directed to pronunciation?

BlueFinger Wrote:I've used to find ごちぞうさま pretty hard to pronounce, since I couldn't remember if it was ごちぞう, ごちじょう, ごしそう, etc...
About all the others listed until now, no problem. Go figure.

It's extra fun because it's actually ごちそうさま.

連絡 still gives me a hard time.

gyuujuice Wrote:Wait... Ta12121, are you studying Chinese as well?
Or was that directed to pronunciation?

I was directing to the 4000 kanji and 人名漢字. I'm not learning mandarin just yet. But I will once I've finished with japanese. That's why I'm aiming past 3007 kanji. It will give me a head-start in the kanji-field. But in case for chinese, knowing more kanji helps cuz of the increased amount of characters, since the language only using characters(kanji)

Tobberoth Wrote:

BlueFinger Wrote:I've used to find ごちぞうさま pretty hard to pronounce, since I couldn't remember if it was ごちぞう, ごちじょう, ごしそう, etc...
About all the others listed until now, no problem. Go figure.

It's extra fun because it's actually ごちそうさま.

You see?
I pronounce it with ぞ anyway, sound just like it, and it's easier.