This topic contains 4 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
I hope this wasn’t already answered, I haven’t found anything about it here at least.
How do you pronounce “name”-さん ?
I reached the point where I study the sentences part 6 (season2.6)
and the audio doesn’t sound like I would expect -さん to sound like
this is confusing and frustrating. I hope someone can help.Sounds ok to me. Possibly the issue is in your expectations – it’s not pronounced at all the same as how it is in American movies…
how is it in american movies?
okay so, I don’t really hear the ん.
Is it a dialect thing, when you fluent that you kind of swallow it?Yeah, I believe that Japanese pronunciation of ん is less noticeably pronounced than an English “n” sound. If you’re familiar with french, the japanese ん reminds me of french “n”s after a vowel, where the n sort of “closes” the vowel. Hmm how to explain this…
It’s like, when you pronounce a word that starts with an “n” （に、な、ぬ、ね、の）you probably press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. With ん you don’t do that. You just take the vowel you were already pronouncing and you make it go really nasal.I think when you do it, you can feel yourself sort of closing your mouth a little and speaking more through your nose, which is maybe why they call it “closing a vowel.”
In any case, that particular japanese sound is called the “moraic nasal” and there’s a wikipedia article talking about it. There’s a nice sound file there that might help you:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Pronunciation#Moraic_nasal
Hope this helps!
-EihikoNot from the desk of Eihiko. Eihiko's boss took his desk away from him.yes this was really helpful. thank you very much !!
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.