Japanese language Q&A

[muliebrity]

Well, either there is something wrong with my English pronounciation of either of those two words (which I doubt) or the difference is so small that you have to be a linguist to hear the difference...

I don't know why I didn't realize this sooner, but the issue may be one of accents. I speak with a general American accent, and this may be responsible for the confusion. In my accent, the difference is very obvious.

If I may add my voice; from what I've been taught, Mirage's pronunciations are more or less correct. It's worth noting the the 'i' sound is longer than in the word, hit, but shorter than in the word, she. So, Rin does not exactly rhyme with bin, nor rhyme exactly with been.

This is why more people should learn IPA. The "i" in Japanese is decidedly front/close, and not near-front/near-close.

In regards to the sumimasen example, refer to my earlier note about the 'i' sound. One must be careful not to stress any one syllable too much. Pronouncing it as 'soo-mee-mah-sen' using English sounds is as wrong as pronouncing it 'soo-mim-ah-sen' from an accuracy perspective.

That is incorrect, according to this Japanese woman (as a side note, that also represents a great example of the nasally "n" I was talking about).

And I must stress that 'moan' is definitely not a good example of how to describe a Japanese 'o' sound. For Americans this is different, but compare to the British/Australian pronunciation of any short 'o' sound; hot, cot, spot, etc. If this is hard to understand, try and picture the stereotypical English kid saying "you wot".

You're right about all of this, in my opinion.

[Mirage_GSM]

I'm sorry, I'll rephrase: "Bin" and "been" rhyme to a quite large portion of humans who use the words, but might not to some others depending on their accent.

"Bin" rhymes with tin, shin, skin, win, kin, sin and gin.
"Been" rhymes with sheen, lean, mean, seen, keen, bean and green.
If there's any accent where all of these sound the same I've yet to encounter it.

I don't know why I didn't realize this sooner, but the issue may be one of accents. I speak with a general American accent, and this may be responsible for the confusion. In my accent, the difference is very obvious.

BTW, When I speak English, I use Oxford English. If you're speaking one of the many American variants of English, that could explain some of the confusion.

[muliebrity]

All of this ambiguity is removed by understanding the difference between a near-front/near-close/unrounded vowel and a front/close/unrounded vowel. Please click on those links and play the samples Wikipedia has. In The Queen's English, the sound isn't much closer when saying "hit" than in GA (though in Ozzie or Kiwi English it's sort of close).

The clearest way to say it is this: in Japanese, what we transliterate as "i" is almost always read as a front/close/unrounded vowel. The video I linked illustrates this with an example.

Anyway, I didn't mean this to get heated, I appreciate the effort you put into this.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, seems we agree after all.
It's just that I've never heard "hit" pronounced with a "near-front/near-close/unrounded" vowel...

[muliebrity]

It's just that I've never heard "hit" pronounced with a "near-front/near-close/unrounded" vowel...

Listen here and you will have done. We Americans are pretty lazy with our vowels.

I guess all of this is moot if you just listen to Japanese people talk, though!

[Auratus]

I am learning Japanese with slow progress.

A question : What is difference in pronouncing between "su-す" "zu-ず" and "tsu-つ"　and, "ji" (chi with maru) and "ji- じ"　(shi with maru)

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

Those are tenten, not maru, and I'm not sure what you mean by "the difference". Do you mean to say you don't understand how they sound different? "Su" is pronounced more or less like the girls' name, "Sue". "Zu" is pretty much the same as the animal-filled attraction, "Zoo". And "Tsu"... well, it's a bit harder to explain. Try saying "Cat soup" a few times, then say it without the "Ca" and the "p". The two "Ji"s have the same pronunciation, except I'm pretty sure one of them isn't used as often as the other. Hope that helps.

[Auratus]

Those are tenten, not maru...

Yes sorry. I screwed up.

and I'm not sure what you mean by "the difference". Do you mean to say you don't understand how they sound different? "Su" is pronounced more or less like the girls' name, "Sue". "Zu" is pretty much the same as the animal-filled attraction, "Zoo". And "Tsu"... well, it's a bit harder to explain. Try saying "Cat soup" a few times, then say it without the "Ca" and the "p". The two "Ji"s have the same pronunciation, except I'm pretty sure one of them isn't used as often as the other. Hope that helps.

Problem is, Thailand's education doesn't take English pronunciation seriously. So... I don't know difference between "Sue" and "Zoo"

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

So... I don't know difference between "Sue" and "Zoo"

Try this, maybe it'll help you. I recorded in American English, if that matters.