Here's something that's been confusing me for a while. Sometimes when I hear "で" it sounds like "day". For example, あるいで. But sometimes, it sounds like it rhymes with "den". For example, でんしゃ (電車). So, is this letter pronounced differently in different contexts? Or am I hearing it wrong?

You should strive to make it sound like "den" type of "De"

However like in all languages, words don't sound exaclty the same way they are spelled.

For instance, if you say "ten pennies" out loud you'll realize you're saying something more like "tempennies". Of course if you space it out it would be "Ten" "pennies" but in normal speech it slurs.

Although I do not think I've ever heard "e" becoming "ei". could be you hearing it wrong,

Are you sure you're not hearing it as 'day' when followed by い? As in 読んでいる. I wouldn't exactly call that sound 'day', but I can understand how it could be confused.

The ん in でん clearly deadens the sound, but I don't think you could say it is pronounced differently.

What is あるいで?

zachandhobbes Wrote:For instance, if you say "ten pennies" out loud you'll realize you're saying something more like "tempennies". Of course if you space it out it would be "Ten" "pennies" but in normal speech it slurs.

Umm. No. You're doing it wrong.

As for で, I think it's more like you're still learning to process the sound in conjunction with other sounds you might be unfamiliar with, such as ん, which is a tricky one.

sorry I talk like a normal human being >_>...

next you're going to tell me saying "gonna" is bad

nest0r Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:For instance, if you say "ten pennies" out loud you'll realize you're saying something more like "tempennies". Of course if you space it out it would be "Ten" "pennies" but in normal speech it slurs.

Umm. No. You're doing it wrong.

Why is that wrong? That kind of anticipatory assimilation is well attested in the literature.

granted it wasn't the best example, since saying "tempennies" is different than hearing "ei" when it should be "eh"

fugu68 Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:For instance, if you say "ten pennies" out loud you'll realize you're saying something more like "tempennies". Of course if you space it out it would be "Ten" "pennies" but in normal speech it slurs.

Umm. No. You're doing it wrong.

Why is that wrong? That kind of anticipatory assimilation is well attested in the literature.

I was joking (‘you're doing it wrong’ is a common self-parodic douchy phrase, from my experience, though possibly some use it without being deliberately self-deprecating). It served multiple tacit purposes: To underscore that with certain phrases and in certain contexts such ‘assimilation’ is awkward and one ought to avoid them when noted (if you say ‘tempennies’ I recommend against it, for form's sake), and that in this case I think we are not dealing with mishearing someone who is producing speech in such a way, but a listening issue related to a different fundamental phonetic aspect of Japanese. Please don't take it as a serious criticism or linguistic analysis. It was meant to be a humorous preface to make space for an alternative speculation.

Ok, I think I must have been hearing and pronouncing it wrong. If I get a better example, I'll have to ask to make sure.

On a related note, as someone mentioned... when you pronounce せんせい (先生), does the "せい" sound exactly like "say"? Or does it start with an え sound and flow into the い sound?

Ok, here's an example sentence from Rosetta Stone where the particle, "で" really sounds like "day" to me. Is it my ears, or does the particle "で" sound like "day".

Example sentence: ダンサーは通りで踊っています。

foodcubes Wrote:Ok, I think I must have been hearing and pronouncing it wrong. If I get a better example, I'll have to ask to make sure.

On a related note, as someone mentioned... when you pronounce せんせい (先生), does the "せい" sound exactly like "say"? Or does it start with an え sound and flow into the い sound?

It flows into the sound

Sehh-ii. Just very quickly.

zachandhobbes Wrote:It flows into the sound

Sehh-ii. Just very quickly.

I think this is wrong, at least according to my textbook in college, and my professors (my ear says so too, but one's ears can be misleading). When you say せんせい, despite how it is written, you never make the い sound. You just extend the え vowel sound.

Could just be the way we're hearing it.

It's not like I emphasize the "i" but I know there's a distinct difference between せんせい and せんせえ

I dunno, maybe i'm too nooby at japanese. I was there at a school for a while and never noticed what you just mentioned though.

I'm pretty sure I brought that book to Japan with me, I'll take a look when I have a chance. Playing guitar the moment, too lazy to stop and do something that requires effort.

Tzadeck Wrote:I'm pretty sure I brought that book to Japan with me, I'll take a look when I have a chance. Playing guitar the moment, too lazy to stop and do something that requires effort.

Yeah, I was right. In Japanese: The Spoken Language, at the beginning of the book there is a long section on pronunciation. The author says that one of the inconsistencies of ひらがな pronunciation as well as most romanization systems is that ~えい/ei is pronounced like ええ in some words and えい in others. In the book, she says will distinguish this in her romanization. Words that are pronounced like ええ will be written 'ee', and words that are pronounced えい will be written 'ei'. せんせい is romanized later in the book as 'sensee'.

The Oxford Pocket Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary also distinguishes the two pronunciations of ~えい, and the entry for せんせい reads 'sensee.'

So, there's no difference between せんせい and せんせえ　in pronunciation.

Well, you mean in practice and speaking, there's no difference.

There's obviously a difference when you put them side by side. But you're saying that the proper way of SAYING it is sensee, because of the way language works.

I get what you mean. Thanks for letting me know, I didn't know that. Although most likely, those of us studying Japanese and immersing ourselves pick that up naturally (hopefully ).

zachandhobbes Wrote:But you're saying that the proper way of SAYING it is sensee, because of the way language works.

Yeah, it's just written differently than it's said. Pronunciation changes faster than written language, so often the two do not line up perfectly. It happens waaaaaaaay more in English, since Japanese writing was updated on purpose relatively recently.

hahaha it would suck to be learning English and trying to sound things out, as a Japanese person especially
"P... puh... puh huh... puh huh... won..."
"It's phone"

Btw, I should note for learners, the majority of ～えい words are pronounced ええ. So if you don't want to memorize it by individual words, it's safer to just say ええ for everything.

tokyostyle Wrote:

foodcubes Wrote:Ok, here's an example sentence from Rosetta Stone where the particle, "で" really sounds like "day" to me. Is it my ears, or does the particle "で" sound like "day".

It sounds more like day with the y sound completely cut. Also you'll find the actually pronunciation is somewhere between day and dey (like hey), once again with the y sound cut off.

Pronouncing で as "day" instead of the way Japanese do is probably one of those things that gives our Japanese an American accent.

Ok, so at least in this example someone hears it as "Day" minus the "y". Instead of "Den" minus the "n".

Example sentence: ダンサーは通りで踊っています。




On a related note, do Japanese people think that Americans have cool accents when they speak Japanese? Huh? Huuh? Please say yes.

foodcubes Wrote:On a related note, do Japanese people think that Americans have cool accents when they speak Japanese? Huh? Huuh? Please say yes.

I've heard what sounds to me like narrators on music shows and stuff imitating American accented Japanese. But maybe it's just a "cool" way of speaking.

tokyostyle Wrote:In general I've found the only thing my accent does is mess up words. For example the difference between 帰る and 買える can be confusing and downright jarring if you don't say it right. (Guess how I know that ...)

What's the difference?

fakewookie Wrote:

tokyostyle Wrote:In general I've found the only thing my accent does is mess up words. For example the difference between 帰る and 買える can be confusing and downright jarring if you don't say it right. (Guess how I know that ...)

What's the difference?

I think tokyostyle's referring to pitch accent?

By the way: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e...y_in_pitch (See the bit about the frog, at the bottom: 蛙が帰る. I'm totally going to learn a bunch of those puns.)

Word of the comment:

駄洒落
ダジャレ
だじゃれ
Audio

Simple. English has 2 sounds within a space where Japanese has only one.

Languages use all the space available in the mouth in an attempt to make vowels as distinct and far apart as possible. The entire space is made up not of points where vowels are pronounced, but of non-overlapping areas within which each vowel remains that same vowel. These areas are not the same from language to language, or even from dialect to dialect.

English has more than double the amount of vowels Japanese has. Inevitably, Japanese vowels cover larger areas, and each vowel can undergo variations which in English would mark separate vowels.

In short, the one Japanese vowel sounds like 2 English vowels to your English speaker's ears.