But...がくせい has four "syllables"...hasn't it?

What I did, was opening random websites and scan for katakana (I started with that almost a year before I properly started studying Japanese) and then did the same for hiragana.

Last edited by Stian (2013 March 20, 2:09 pm)

Oh great, double thanks!  One for the pronunciation tip and another for the deck idea.  Regarding the web scan, I've tried that on sites such as kids.yahoo.co.jp and it is helpful, but I still am not confident enough to know if I am getting everything right.  It's kind of a pain to look it up every time and I wanted something that lets me easily check myself with either audio or romaji pronunciation, so this deck idea is right on the money!

I guess pronunciation will just come with practice, and that is precisely why I wanted some katakana and hirigana practice with audio.  My main focus is still on finishing RTK but  sometimes I want to do a little more after I reach my daily goal, especially to reinforce the hirigana and katakana since they really don't show up at all during RTK. 

I hadn't thought to look at the core decks because I'm not at that stage in my study yet, but modifying the deck as you suggest to only show hirigana or katakana is a really useful suggestion!

Thanks again!

Last edited by blenderball (2013 March 20, 4:27 pm)

^ Are you aware of how much focus 拍 or モーラ students are exposed to in, say, their 国語の授業? It would be interesting to have some idea of how much of this subject is instruction learners of the language as a secondary language pick up and how much of this aspect of Japanese is purely acquired as a native Japanese speaker growing up in their language environment.

Not the production aspect, I mean, the awareness of the mechanics behind it, that is.

It's not something they really have to teach excessively though; even Japanese children have an awareness of that issue though they might not be able to explain it.  But ここ vs. 高校 (to use one example) isn't something that Japanese children have to explicitly be taught.  ゆき is a girl's name and ゆうき is a guy's name.  待て is forceful and sometimes rude whereas 待って is merely casual.  There are so many examples like this that are just in basic, everyday Japanese that it's hard to believe even small children have any trouble with it.

EDIT: As for the explicit mechanics I'm not sure; it's probably discussed at some point but I doubt it's something that they have to spend much time on.  It's one of those "You already know this perfectly, here's the terms you can use to talk about it" issues that you get a lot in teaching children their native language.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2013 March 21, 2:13 am)

I am currently studying this book and can highly recommend it to beginners for learning how to read, write, and build vocab with more than 1500 words in カタカナ.  (Personally, I had no idea there were so many loanwords, and from so many languages other than English!)

          Easy Katakana - How to Read English Loanwords in Japanese
          By Tina Wells and Aoi Yokouchi,
          Yohan Publications, Inc 1986, 1990

Re pronunciation, I was taught that since Japanese is not a stress accent language, every syllable is pronounced equally.  But that’s not how I hear it, and this book contains useful pronunciation rules which have helped me make sense of what I knew I was actually hearing (like that whispered, almost silent /u/ in がくせい).

A few examples:
"When followed by t, k, h, p, or silence, ス　is pronounced /s'/. e.g. ストレス　＝　sutoresu, where the /su/ is pronounced /s'/.   
The /u/ in ク is usually whispered when  t, s, h, or p follows, or when it occurs at the end of a phrase.  /k’/   e.g.  タクシー　＝　takushii, where the /ku/ is pronounced /k'/.
ン　 = 　/m/ as in 'import' or 'imbalance' when followed by  p,  b,  or　 m;  otherwise, n as in 'income'..."


As a way of studying the book, I am at the same time in the process of making an Anki deck containing the 1500 words, places and names, so that I can become familiar with recognising  カタカナ words quickly and not just the individual syllables/モラ.　　It’s taking me a while though, so I don’t know when I’ll be finished – and it won’t include audio. (But I am including the relevant pronunciation guides on each card.)

scarby dancer wrote:

(Personally, I had no idea there were so many loanwords, and from so many languages other than English!)

There are over some 50,000 of them. China of course had a massive influence on the language, and a lot of which filtered through Korea; the early Dutch presence helped the back and forth of foreign learning and adapting of words, at least in the academic realm; there was a fair bit of interest earlier on by wealthy English setting up trade within Japan, plus the new migration out of Japan by some of the more worldly Japanese, bringing back with them different insights into European culture, much of which was still alien at the time. Then there is of involvement of the Americans (and Soviets to an extent) and the rest is history.

That and there is apparently a rising trend of what are referred to as "younger generations" (teenagers, I guess?) becoming more and more prone to scatter their speech with more and more loan words. It was in some report I read not all that long ago. The tone was a little amusing, as though somehow this represents a downfall of the language. Then again, the conservative aspects of most societies pretty much say the same thing about foreign influence, year after year.


I don't know who I feel for more sometimes: older generations of Japanese or newer generations of Japanese learners, lol.

Voicing the う　in す is typical to certain non-standard types of speech. In Standard Japanese the う is devoiced.

As far as I know (I may be wrong about this), mainly extremely feminine ones(pitch on the す） or yakuza/delinquent speech （where it becomes っす）, and a few other non-standard variations. Of course, certain tones will drag it out intentionally (そうなんですー＝is that soooo...） even in 標準語、but again, those are exceptional cases rather than the norm. I think some forms 関西弁 also voice the す? I'm not sure about that. I'm not that good with phonetics and dialects, unfortunately.

Everyone who I've ever met in Kansai that pronounces the う in です is a middle aged woman, usually who is overly-polite all the time.

It's not really optional; you should devoice the u or you'll sound funky.

In the Japanese company I was working for I often heard staff say ですう when speaking to bosses and sometimes when calling me on the phone. Also in things like Xと申しますう。 I actually caught myself doing it on occasions without really noticing (and also using ～ますので、ですので in the middle of sentences but that's a different kettle of fish). But I agree that it does remind me of a 40/50 something y.o. おかあさん。 Luckily I've since stopped saying that because I am a 20-something y.o. guy...

yudantaiteki wrote:

On the phone I heard people saying すみませんです～ all the time; I think lengthening desu on the phone is normal for some reason.

Agreed. If they weren't talking to the boss then nine times out of ten when I heard it, it was on the phone.

Last edited by SendaiDan (2013 March 22, 7:24 am)