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According to the TextFugu Hiragana chart, ぢ is pronounced “dzi,” but everyone’s saying something different, and I can’t actually find any words when used with the dzi romaji, only for the di or ji romaji. And Google Japanese input doesn’t convert dzi to anything, the only way to get ぢ is by typing ‘di.’
I am also confused about:
づ (TextFugu’s hiragana chart says dzu, but I can only find ‘du’ words and type ‘du’) and the three combo hiragana ぢゃ、ぢゅ、ぢょ。
The chart also says that the pronunciation of these kana are: じゃ(jya)、じゅ(jyu)、じょ(jyo), when I have seen them pronounced as ja, ju and jo before. Can these kana be pronounced in different ways?Can anyone offer an explanation?
ぢ and じ are pronounced exactly the same. From the wikipedia page for じ:
「じ」は「ぢ」と同じ発音であり、現代標準語では「じ」と「ぢ」を音の上で区別しない。
“じ has the same pronunciation as ぢ, in modern, standard Japanese there is no distinction in the sounds.”
Likewise, all the combos are the same ぢゃ＝じゃ、ぢゅ＝じゅ、ぢょ＝じょ. There is no “y” sound really in any of these; “ja”, “ju”, and “jo” are closer to the true pronunciation than “jya”, “jyu”, or “jyo”.づ is different. “Dzu” matches pretty well though. Try saying “Ted Zoolander” really fast. Then ditch the “lander” and the “Te”. づ is about what you have left.
Those aren’t pronounciations, those are romanisations. There’s a difference (though there shouldn’t be, which is one of the great challenges of romanisation).
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