This topic contains 3 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
So I’m having a hard time hearing it. Is it 2 a’s being pronounced in 2 separate words, or is it just a long a sound
It’s technically two separate sounds, but they tend to merge together in real-world speaking.
I was wondering about this as well when I came across that lesson. Koichi’s (I believe) recording sounds like there’s only one “ah” sound “jyarimasenn”, whereas in later recordings with the female voice there’s a slight change of tone or pause at the two “ah”s, like “jya-arimasenn”. It’s a very slight difference, personally I find myself holding at the ah for a split second.
I think if you’re wanting to be clear in your speech, you’d put more emphasis on the fact it’s two words (the teacher at the class I go to kinda does that: rising intonation on the “ja”, small pause, then falling intonation on the “arimasen”; not limited to that one word, she just does that generally when she wants to be clear or put emphasis on some point). Plus there’s just difference in the way different people say things – I’d probably side with the native speaker than Koichi, just since he’s not native, you know?
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.