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Hello
I am a recent newbie to TextFugu and am slowly working my way through the lessons. Recently I have become worried that I am not hearing the audio correctly for a couple of words and I am hoping that someone can help me out. My question is with regard to the pronunciation of くin the following words:
わたくし
しょうがくせい
ちゅうがくせい
がくせい
Specifically, is the くsaid as “ku”; more of just a “k” sound (ie like the す in ですis said just as “s”); or with a very slight “u” sound after the “k”. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Any references to other audio files would be even better.
Thanks
Andrew
It’s a pretty common thing, contracting kana sounds. It’s usually only with く す and し though, if I recall correctly. Joel will probably jump in with some detailed guide on the matter, but I’d say you just kinda pick up when to do it, when it sounds right.
Detailed guide: the う sound sometimes gets crushed to near-silence… and that’s pretty much it. =P Happens to つ sometimes as well. Basically, if it’s a short う-sound, you can often expect it to be very short, especially if truncating it makes the next syllable easier to say.
Incidentally, in your list of examples, the がくせい is the same word each time – 学生. =)
Thanks for the comments. That being said, in the words ending がくせい and in わたくし, should I be hearing (or more importantly saying) a normal うsound, a truncated version or none at all?
Very nearly none at all. They come out as something like “watakshi” and “gaksei”. That said, you’re not really going to get funny looks if you say “gakusei”, unless you put too much emphasis on the く.
Not sure how often people use わたくし these days, though…
Another fun one is the name of the new Tokyo Skytree – in Japanese, it’s スカイツリー, which is pronounced something like “skaitsrii”…
Thanks Joel
わたくし is often used in formal speech Joel. You will mostly find it used in speeches by company presidents, confessions, announcements etc..
I have also heard it used by hosts and guests in TV-shows, so I would argue that it is pretty common.
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