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Hello fellow scholars (and others) !!!
I always wanted to explore this mysterious language, don’t know why though.
I mean, I’ve never been to Japan (will change), don’t like sushi (not enough), don’t like manga, not even the cute (indeed) Japanese ladies :D
When I tried to start Japanese (at the age of 13) everyone discouraged me and never manage to do anything :(. 20 years later, it’s payback time and I love it :DI have have two pronunciation questions and I hope that one of you could help me. I really want to get it right from the begining.
a) What is happening with this “r” ? Our せんせい (no Kanji yet – sorry :D ) on the initial videos was pronouncing it more like r/d/l and I am fine with that. I could easily adapt to this sound and I did. But, others pronounce it more like r with a little l (ra/ro) or r with d (ri/ru/re). After some lessons, I also heard (here) the word からて and “ra” is “ra” , no strange “rdla” ! Ok… Gone to youtube and listened all kind or “ra/ri/re/ro/ru”. Some “rla” some “rda” but then “rli” some “ra” and “rdlo”… Oh my god :D
Is it fine to say it like からて (playback) and not as in the introductory videos ? Is the sound changing when in a word?
I can make a rd sound with the back of my mouth, I can also make a rd with a hint with l, I can also make a rl with a hint of d. But all those sound different than the “からて” playback. In that playback, “ra” is “ra” , a clean “ra” with a rolling tongue (not like in English ra).b) what about the ん… another confusing aspect. In the introductory pronunciation videos, it sounds clearly like a deep n with a hint of m. Again, since I can copy easily the sounds, I didn’t try to mimic our (Greek) or English n sound and copied that. But, today, I learned about じゃありません and…it sounds like a deep M with a hint of n at the end. Which is better ? Other videos on youtube, sound more like the latter (deep m with an n at the end) and nothing like the intro video of ん pronunciation.
Probably these questions have been answered before but the google search on this forum brings all kind of results.
I am really sorry for this long post, please forgive me :)
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This topic was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by
John.
nice sig
I wouldn’t rely too much on recordings to differentiate between M-sounds and N-sounds. ん is usually closer to N, except when it’s before ば-, ぱ- and ま-line characters, in which case it’s pronounced M. (For example, せんぱい = “sempai” ish) Wikipedia adds that it’s pronounced like “[ɴ] (at the end of utterances)” but I don’t know enough about phonetics to say what that actually sounds like.
Thank you all for your help !
I suppose that as I move forward it will get easier to grasp the correct pronunciation of various words/combinations.
Hello everyone!
I have studied japanese for some years and I know a lot of japanese people. I’m from Brazil so interestingly it’s easier for Portuguese speakers to grasp the pronounciation of japanese because we have kind of the same sounds. I know it’s harder for English speakers, specially the R. But I may have some tips on the subject…
About the R, there are different accents in Japan, so there are people who speak it more like an L sound and people who make more of a D sound – actually, I believe the sweetspot is somewhere in between those two. You should do an L sound but try to use the tip of the tongue instead of the middle. The difference to the D sound is that your tongue is more to the back of your mouth, not too close to the teeth.
With the ん you should keep in mind the romaji is N and not M for a reason. For a ‘mute’ N you move your tongue; fora a ‘mute’ M you close your lips. So in general it’s closer to an N. But it’s not very natural to do – just – this before P or B (that’s why, as Joel said, in せんぱい it has more of an M sound), since these are sounds which make you close your lips. (Also, this is why in Portuguese and Spanish, you should always write M instead of N before P or B in words).
It was kind of a long post, but hopefully helpful!
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This topic was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by
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