Submit your Pronunciation Questions!
Added 2019-02-06 06:24:44 +0000 UTCGood afternoon Patrons!
Just wanted to remind everyone that the next Japanese Phonetics lesson with be a pronunciation Q&A, so if anyone has any specific concerns related to pronunciation, please feel free to leave a comment below and I'll be sure to answer it in the video. In the case there aren't too many comments here, I'll address common questions and miscellaneous issues I have been asked about multiple times in the past. Thank you for your continued support, and talk to you all again soon!
Best from Beppu,
Dogen
Comments
Hi Walt, the downstep occurs on ใ in the ใใใ form, regardless of the pitch-accent of the original verb. I haven't been able to cover numbers yet as this is a combined topic that I need to further research, but I plan on starting to cover them in lesson 65 (the next lesson will be 63, for your reference). Apologies for the multiple delays and thank you for your support!
Dogen
2019-05-23 00:32:27 +0000 UTCHi. A few months ago I asked about the pitch patterns for numbers like 46, 83, 752 and 1839. You replied that you hoped "... to answer this question in the next month or so!" Have you posted a lesson on this topic yet? Similarly for the question about the ใใใ" form. Thanks,
Walt Poor
2019-05-22 17:52:22 +0000 UTCHi Walt, Thanks for the questions. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly when I talked about the ใใใ form, and because there are currently 59 lessons I sadly don't have time to locate the exact lesson at this moment. If I remember correctly, however, I think I may have only mentioned it in passing, as in "We'll talk about the ใใใ" form in an upcoming lesson, rather than addressing it outright. With regards to your second question, ใใ will attach low when a downstep has occurred in the verb before it, so it will attach low to both ๆใฃใฆ and ่ฉฑใใฆ, as both have downsteps, and it will attach high to ๅนณๆฟ verbs. Hope that this helps! Cheers!
Dogen
2019-03-29 04:54:28 +0000 UTCI have two questions about things you have probably covered, but which I cannot find in my notes. First: I think I saw the ใใใ form in one of your lectures, but now I can't find it. Where do you talk about it? Second: What happens when ใใ is attached to the ใฆ form of a verb? For example, ๆใฃใฆใใ and ่ฉฑใใฆใใ.
Walt Poor
2019-03-29 01:09:15 +0000 UTCHi Walt! In both of these instances the word should be pronounced as a KEkkou, with the downstep on the first mora. That said, this initial change in pitch will change based on exactly how much the speaker is trying to emphasize the meaning of the word. In other words, ใใใใ็ตๆงใงใ, could mean, "No thank you, I'm fine." or "Didn't I tell you to stop already?", depending on just how clearly the speaker articulates the word. For more information on sentence level pitch accent and pitch-accent variations, I encourage you to check out lessons 25-29, which can be found here: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/16489306">https://www.patreon.com/posts/16489306</a> Thank you!
Dogen
2019-03-06 07:53:36 +0000 UTCSorry about this, but it's time for my latest weird question of the day. At different times I seem to hear different pitches for the word ็ตๆง. For example, it seems to have different pitches in the sentences ใฏใใ็ตๆงใงใใ and ใใใใ็ตๆงใงใใ Is this correct, or are my ears fooling me again? And if there really are different pitches in these cases, are there many words with context-dependent pitches? Are there any rules which I might understand?
Walt Poor
2019-03-04 21:58:14 +0000 UTCHi Walt! Numbers are actually incredibly complexโI don't yet understand many of the rules, so it's difficult for me to answer your question at this point. That said, I plan on doing a lesson about this in the near future, and thus will do a considerable amount of research on the topic; I should be able to answer this question in the next month or so! Apologies for the delay, and thank you for your continued support.
Dogen
2019-02-28 04:14:32 +0000 UTCAs near as I can determine, the numbers ้ถ, ใผใญ, ไธ, ไบ, ไธ, ๅ, ไบ, ๅ ญ, ไธ, ๅ ซ, ไน, and ๅ are either ้ ญ้ซ or ๅฐพ้ซ. So how should they be combined? For example, what would the pitch patterns be for 46, 83, 752 and 1839? And looking ahead to bigger numbers, is there anything special about the pitch patterns for the numbers ไธ and higher?
Walt Poor
2019-02-27 21:13:48 +0000 UTCHi Tao! Unfortunately I received this message about an hour after I finished recording, so I wasnโt able to address it. As you mentioned, however, rendaku would be a good topic for an entire video as itโs so complicated. Will try to make a lesson about this in the future! Thanks!
Dogen
2019-02-12 10:58:30 +0000 UTCNot really a question, but maybe you can talk about rendaku. Although I guess that would be a topic for a whole video.
Tao Cumplido
2019-02-12 09:20:54 +0000 UTCGot it!
Dogen
2019-02-09 13:49:14 +0000 UTCHopping on Nathan's dialect question, could you talk briefly about what cultural associations Japanese people have with different regional accents? For example, I've heard that speaking Touhoku-ben makes one seem like a country bumpkin. And, do Japanese people intentionally adopt regional accents to evoke a certain mood, like I might start using "y'all" and drawling a bit if I want to come across as casual and folksy? Thanks!
Timothy Chambers
2019-02-09 00:54:21 +0000 UTCHi Sami! Thanks for the question. Sorry for not being clear about this, but the upcoming Q&A is meant to be about pronunciation, as opposed to pitch-accent. Thus, I probably won't be able to address your question in the next video, but after this lesson I'll be switching back to pitch-accent and concentrating on advanced concepts, so I actually think this would make a great topic for one of those episodes. If you're able to wait a bit I should be able to cover things in detail! ^^ Apologies for the delay and thank you for your support!
Dogen
2019-02-08 00:40:04 +0000 UTCHi dogen. I'd really like to get a clear understanding on how pitch accent woks for verbs following te the te form. For example, ้ฃในใฆใใพใ and ้ฃในใกใใ - does the simau/chau all attach low since tabete is atamadaka? How would it work for heiban verbs like ๆใใ? Would it attach high since shimau is heiban? Further, ้ฃในใฆใใ and ้ฃในใฆใใพใ. iru is heiban but from listening it seems to attach low, but im not sure im hearing it right. Should treat it like two words and have TAbeteiRU? Or should i treat it like the compound verb general rule and apply the downstep on [-3] i.e. taBETEiru. What about the teimasu form? Does the 'masu form pitch accent the same across all verbs' rule hold and make it taBETEIMAsu? or does the teimasu attach low like TAbeteimasu. If you could go over the teiru teiku teoku tearu tekuru etc + masu form pitch accent rules i would be eternally grateful.
TheHighDinosaur
2019-02-07 18:28:03 +0000 UTCHi Miles. I'll probably skip this one this time around, but may do a dedicated lesson to this topic in the future. Cheers!
Dogen
2019-02-07 13:32:12 +0000 UTCGot it! Thanks!
Dogen
2019-02-07 13:31:37 +0000 UTCI'd love a rundown on ใคใณใญใผ phonetics and pitch accent; things like the ใใใ to ~ใใผ change, or ใชใใ ใใ sounding more like ใชใใ ใใ etc. Note: obviously this isn't *entirely* a serious suggestion, so if it doesn't make the cut, I won't be devastated. That said, "how to speak like a yankee" is a subject virtually uncovered and if anyone could teach it, you're definitely the man for the job.
Miles Gard
2019-02-07 10:10:44 +0000 UTCA little bit related to the ใใฃใใใใฉใฃใ phenomenon (maybe) but can you give some clarification on how to pronounce ใใใใใ and it's conjugations (ๆใใใฃใ and ๆใใใชใใฃใ) in rapid or casual speech. I feel sure some of those ใs and ใs must get dropped somewhere but my wonderwife strongly denied that my ๆจๆฅใใฃใใใฃใ was something natives say (and I must bow to her native intuition)
tensaimon
2019-02-07 06:27:12 +0000 UTCGot it Michaelโthanks!
Dogen
2019-02-07 04:46:14 +0000 UTCWill cover this! Cheers!
Dogen
2019-02-07 04:46:05 +0000 UTCGot it. Thanks!
Dogen
2019-02-07 04:45:59 +0000 UTCWill talk about this! Cheers! ^^
Dogen
2019-02-07 04:44:33 +0000 UTCGiven an English word that has not been adopted into Japanese, e.g. a proper name (personal, location, brand), is it better to try to modify its pronunciation to match how it would be pronounced if it was adopted into Japanese or should it be pronounced as it would be in English?
Michael B. McLaughlin
2019-02-07 04:15:39 +0000 UTCAn example of gemination from English that may help is "back court", as in, "oh, that game is being played on the back court". Compare that to "oh, that's tobacco". For me, at least, there is a noticeable gemination with back court versus tobacco. Hope that helps.
Michael B. McLaughlin
2019-02-07 03:58:11 +0000 UTCI think it is addressed in one of the lessons. Basically, when an unvoiced consonant is followed by an unvoiced consonant, certain vowel sounds (i, u) attached to the mora that forms the first pair of morae are "dropped". ใงใ is a bit unique in that it will still typically be pronounced as des even when followed by, e.g. ใญ. But I'm just summarizing my own knowledge. It's linguistically much more complicated than that. But as a general starting point for observation, you'll find that many situations where the vowel sound seems to drop out occur in the situations I described above.
Michael B. McLaughlin
2019-02-07 03:50:23 +0000 UTCHello, This question has already been asked, but just to say that I'm interested too by the answer. When you record yourself, how can you tell the difference "I pronounce it wrong" and "this is just how I sound", Sometimes I'm not really sure. Thanks a lot
julien
2019-02-07 00:55:49 +0000 UTCI'm increasingly curious about dialects of Japanese other than standard Tokyo Japanese. In particular, I'm going to be spending a good bit of time in southern Touhoku, but I'm having a lot of difficulty finding good resources on the dialects in that area. Do you know any good resources for studying the pronunciation of non-standard dialects of Japanese? Or do you have any advice for pursuing other dialects in general?
Nathan Vegdahl
2019-02-06 20:17:43 +0000 UTCI already saw someone post about repetitive ใใใใใ so I will ask something different. Would you be able to go over pronunciation with a word like ใใใใใ. Ive found that pronouncing the -ใใใ portion of the word to be extremely difficult
Julie Saraceno
2019-02-06 19:57:02 +0000 UTCFirst, thank you for doing this! Q: How can I improve my natural sense of "timing" (in the prosodic sense) for geminate phonemes in Japanese? I have a habit of sustaining them far longer than a native speaker would. It's particularly frustrating for me because Japanese has so many jukugo words like ๅฝๅข(ใใฃใใใ๏ผใๆฑไบฌ้ฝ๏ผใจใใใใใกใใ๏ผใๆฌ่ฝ๏ผใปใใฎใ๏ผfor example that I just botch terribly. These words highlight the sticky geminate-phoneme situations that cause me the most trouble: word medial geminate consonants like in ใใฃใใ, strands of CVV clusters like in ใจใใใใใกใใ, and geminate nasals like in ใปใใฎใใI also get tripped up with words that have varying prosody like ใใใใใใ (2, 1, 1) or ่ชๅ่ฒฉๅฃฒๆฉ๏ผใใฉใใฏใใฐใใ) (1, 2, 2, 2, 1). For lack of a better metaphor, speaking Japanese is kind of like playing an instrument--you have to get the pitch-accent correct for every word, and also get the timing of the piece as a whole. Thanks again for doing this! I know it must be tedious answering repeat questions, but itโs hard for new students to dig through the wealth of material to find their answers sometimes. Youโre a real Japanese phonetics hero. P.S. thanks for putting up with all my amateur linguistics-speak.
Nic Hartmann
2019-02-06 19:46:20 +0000 UTCI'm a huge newb with Japanese, and somewhat new to your Patreon. So - sorry if you have explained this. What is with the dropped vowels at the end?! How can I know? The simplest example is ใงใ = "des". I can remember to always just drop that u. But then new words, especially katakana make me nuts. As an example ใขใคในใฏใชใผใ messes me up, because in my american reading I want to say MUUUU at the end. But it's more like M(u). The tiniest u. Help appreciated in understanding :)
Renee di Cherri
2019-02-06 19:21:35 +0000 UTCThank you for the question Nicolas! Will address this!
Dogen
2019-02-06 14:51:02 +0000 UTCQuestion received!
Dogen
2019-02-06 14:50:50 +0000 UTCThis is kind of an abstract general question... but how do you know the difference between "I'm pronouncing it wrong" and "this is just what my voice sounds like"? Thoughts? Anecdotes? I don't know if there's much more we can do than just try our best.
Nicolas Guillemot
2019-02-06 07:07:41 +0000 UTCHello! I am very keen to hear about what genitive ใฎ does to pitch accent. I think you mentioned that it was a bit complex once earlier in this series. Thank you and best wishes dogen!! (also please wish me luck for my JET CIR interview~)
Judas BH
2019-02-06 06:26:27 +0000 UTC
