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How to pronounce Japanese "u"? | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| mpete16 Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5317 days ago 98 posts - 114 votes  Speaks: Tagalog, English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 9 31 August 2010 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey guys, I'm having difficulty in pronouncing "u" in Japanese (like in the hiragana ぬ,
つ,す etc.). One website said to pronounce it like an u-umlaut in German (Küche). Another said to pronounce it like u in "put". Wikipedia has a recording, but it sounds like a weird combination of the latter two. I'm confused. How should I go about pronouncing this sound? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5176 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 9 31 August 2010 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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/y/ is rounded and front
/u/ is rounded and back Japanese u is unrounded and centre Now, whether that helps or not is another story! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| galindo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5002 days ago 142 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Portuguese | Message 3 of 9 02 September 2010 at 2:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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You just have to listen to it a lot. Recordings on Wikipedia or whatever are usually pronounced shorter and sharper than what you would hear in real life. It's more useful to hear how it's used in actual words. To me, it sounds pretty much like the Spanish 'u'. Actually, most Japanese sounds (even consonants) are exactly the same as in Spanish. When I've heard English speakers speak Japanese, they usually get the vowels right since that's what they've worked on. It's the consonants that sometimes sound a bit off.
It helps to listen to a variety of sources, since the standard Japanese you'll hear in pronunciation guides and audio courses can sound a bit different than what you would hear in less formal content. Depending on the accent of the person speaking, sometimes Japanese can sound very "Spanish" and sometimes less so. Anyways, since Spanish is an "easy" language, you could just learn that pronunciation and you'll be all set to go for Japanese. ;) (When I mention Spanish I'm thinking of Colombian Spanish, but I don't think that matters.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5176 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 9 02 September 2010 at 2:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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Try to listen to the word "suru" for instance. You'll find that it's very different from
how it would sound in Spanish. You can hear it here (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi) under 為る. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| galindo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5002 days ago 142 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Portuguese | Message 5 of 9 02 September 2010 at 2:48am | IP Logged | |||||
That's what I meant when I said that online pronunciation guides can differ greatly from each other and from how you might hear other people speak. Especially after the 's' sound. (Just look at all the other 'suru' words, or maybe some of the 'nu' words like nugu 脱ぐ) The main reason I made the comparison with Spanish is because most Spanish speakers have a very easy time pronouncing Japanese, and vice versa. I've had Skype conversations with Japanese learners of Spanish, and even as beginners they sounded completely natural. Compared to how notoriously bad they are at pronouncing most languages, I would say that indicates a high level of phonetic overlap. It's not like I'm the only one who think this; I've seen lots of people comment that the two languages share a lot of the same sounds. (Spanish language videos on Japanese sites will often get comments like "what language is this? all the 母音 are the same as in Japanese." or "it sounds like Kansai-ben") Anyways, sorry for going so off-topic, but 'u' is basically not that complicated. And Japanese only has 5 vowels, so... But I have to ask, mpete16, are you studying Japanese now? Or just trying to learn the kana as a precursor to future language study? If it's the latter, you probably don't need to worry about the pronunciation until you're actually studying it and have listened to a lot of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mpete16 Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5317 days ago 98 posts - 114 votes Speaks: Tagalog, English* Studies: German | Message 6 of 9 02 September 2010 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for your help, guys.
@galindo: I'm not studying Japanese seriously at the moment. I'd love to be able to speak it one day, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5560 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 7 of 9 02 September 2010 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed, West Japan "u"'s are rounded, so not unlike a Spanish "u". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6267 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 8 of 9 27 September 2010 at 6:46am | IP Logged | |||||
I've seen this before and it's wrong. Whoever came up with it probably thought "well, it's some kind of funky 'u' sound, and German and French have funky 'u' sounds..."
Pretty sure it's back, not center. Roundedness is tricky: Wikipedia says that it's rounded, but with compression rather than protrusion. Probably the best way to be sure that you get the rounding right is to watch a Japanese speaker's lips (as well as your own, using a webcam or something) and imitate them. Remember: as kids, we learned pronunciation not only from listening but from watching as well. Edited by furrykef on 27 September 2010 at 6:47am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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