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Japanese Phonetics Episode 55—UPDATED!

🕑 Added 2019-01-12 01:15:24 +0000 UTC

Comments

Humboldt

Thanks for this video, it made me re-think Japanese nasal consonants and vowels preceding nasal consonants in general; I think I have been saying words like 'ganbatte' and 'sumimasen' with fully nasalized vowels, so like "gãbatte" or "sumimasẽ". Is it true that these vowels are least a little nasalized just due to the influence of the following consonant, or am I just mishearing? I think part of the problem is that I've read that in Mandarin, our syllable final nasals are held very briefly; the tongue only just closes off the airflow to make "n" or "ng" before we stop phonation entirely. In English, the nasal consonants in the coda certainly seem to "last longer". How about in Japanese? I think I may be mistaking a more pronounced nasal consonant for nasalization of the preceding vowel. Thanks

Dogen

Hi, Fabian! Yes, ん at the end of 〜ません is pronounced the same as 日本 provided there is no following sound.

Fabian Amberg

Thanks Dôgen for the great video! Does this mean that the ん of every 〜ません ending in formal verbs is also pronounced without the tongue touching the alveolar ridge like in 日本? (e.g. 止めません)

Dogen

Hi Jack; I can't really hear what you're describing (to me it doesn't sound like seeyen or seeen, but sẽẽen, as described in the video) so it's hard for me to recommend that, as it may cause you to end up with a pronunciation that sounds right to you, but wrong to native speakers. What I would try and do is to use a service such as iTalki.com to check with native speakers which pronunciation sounds more natural. Again, I personally wouldn't think about putting a small い in between the nasalized and un-nasalized sounds, because that's not how I hear the sounds or how I learned them, but there is a small chance that just thinking about putting in the small い could lead to more natural pronunciation—just be sure to verify with a native! Hope this helps!

Jack Pearson

It seems like the speaker in the video pronounces せんえん as "seeyen" not "seeen", with a nasal first vowel. Speakers on Forvo seem to do the same. Should I try to mimic this and put a small い between the nasalized and un-nasalized え sounds?

Dogen

Glad to hear you were able to learn something new ^^

tensaimon

Very interesting, I'd been aware of the issue in げんいん and せんえん but have never really been happy with how I was pronouncing こんやく (which may at some point have been affecting my marriage prospects....), now I know why and how to fix it!

Dogen

Hi Berion, thanks for the comment! Yes that is correct, although the Z sounds are always said as affricates, not fricatives after ん. The location actually follows the same rules when before these sounds. That is to say, the tongue location falls somewhere between that of the sounds on either sides of the words. That said, it's best not to worry too much about tongue position with this sound—just make sure that your tongue doesn't touch any part of your mouth, and that you are nasalizing the sound! Hope this helps!

Orange Hedgehog

Hi Dogen! You said in the previous video that this sound also appears before fricatives and approximants. It is さ/ざ-column and は-column, isn't it? What vowel should be taken as the base for nasalization then? The vowel of the next syllable? Like れんしゅう (practice) -> reishyu? けんし (swordsman) -> keishi? 　

Dogen

Thanks Alex. Yeah, I definitely had to re-learn this one myself—multiple times in fact! haha and I'm glad to hear you thought the lesson was useful ^^

Alex B.

Ahh my favourite sound... Before actually going to Japan I was never taught how to pronounce this sound, only told "not to connect the ん to the vowel" which... is pretty impossible when all you're told is that it's a 'n' sound! I picked it up eventually though haha. Excellent video, and a super important lesson. This just doesn't get taught to new learners.

Dogen

Most likely!

sirati97

wow i am pretty sure this is not only due to confusing notation but also just being taught outright incorrectly

Dogen

Hi Tomoki. As long as you're 100% sure they're being pronounced correctly it shouldn't be an issue. The various N sounds are somewhat similar to the nasalized vowel in the way that they sound, so that could be why you're hearing them that way (all N sounds are nasal as well). Cheers!

Admiral Captain Fabulous

I second this. I use speech to text sometimes and this is where most my "typos" come from. To make sure it wasn't just the software I had a native recording speak and it got it right.

Nathan Vegdahl

Thanks for another great lesson, Dogen! For whatever reason, I'm actually having a perfectly easy time reproducing this one now that I know about it. But the one I'm still having difficulty with is the word-ending ん from the previous lesson. Do you have any extra tips on the word-ending ん?

Tomoki有基

Probably a really stupid question, but is it weird to say that I pronounce most things the right way even though I'm thinking of ん as n? (Except for 千円, I would never have thought to nasalize that). Also, nasalizing seems to be pronouncing it as an "ng" sound, but maybe that's just a simpleton's interpretation.

Dogen

My pleasure! Thanks for the support Sam!

Sam Goodridge

This was a fantastic lesson, thank you as always! :)

Dogen

Hi Arthur! Thanks for the kind words. Based on the comments you've received, I wager that this is a problem that will take some time to fix. I don't think it's necessary to limit output as you've defined it, especially since you're conscious of the problem, but if you try to increase input as much as possible then you'll certainly fix said habit even faster! Hope that this helps!

greyface

Great lesson as always, Dogen! This finally clears up some of the last problems I’ve had with pronunciation. Now I just need to perfect my output of pitches, since this is where I’m repeatedly told I’m ever so slightly off. My one question is whether it’s a bad idea to output extensively before being able to reproduce pitch “perfectly”, since this might fossilize bad habits, or whether I need to output extensively as part of the process of perfecting it. How did you do it? By output I mean conversation with native speakers rather than controlled reproduction and deliberate practice