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.

Last edited by ta12121 (2010 May 15, 5:55 pm)

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....

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)

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2010 May 15, 7:03 pm)

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.

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

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.

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'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.  :-)

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.)

Last edited by gyuujuice (2010 May 15, 11:06 pm)

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.

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.

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)

Last edited by ta12121 (2010 May 18, 6:39 pm)