{"id":3387,"date":"2019-03-27T16:53:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T20:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/?p=3387"},"modified":"2019-04-02T09:12:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T13:12:02","slug":"some-tips-for-pronouncing-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/2019\/03\/27\/some-tips-for-pronouncing-japanese\/","title":{"rendered":"Some tips for pronouncing Japanese"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here at Shuto Karate Club, we strive for authenticity when it comes to all things Japanese. (A unkind way of saying this is that we larp<\/em><\/a> as Japanese when we’re on the dojo floor.) So we are trying to learn and utilize Nihongo<\/em> more (see what I did there?) during practice and in discussing karate. In the near future, I’ll post a list of karate terms and expressions in Japanese, with their English translations.<\/p>\n

Before that, I present the following pronunciation guide. I put this together based on my own knowledge and experience, which means it’s probably missing a few things, given that I’ve never studied it formally. If I’ve made any mistakes, I’m sure my Japanese-fluent readers will set me straight — assuming there are such….<\/p>\n

Here as some Japanese pronunciation tips:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The rendering of Japanese words into Roman alphabetic characters is called \u201cRomaji.\u201d It\u2019s imperfect, but with practice it can get you pretty close to Japanese the way it\u2019s supposed to sound \u2013 if you spend enough time listening to native Japanese speakers.<\/li>\n
  2. Each syllable gets one beat in speaking.
    \nOne type of exception is when you see a double consonant, like tt<\/em>; the syllable that ends in double consonant gets paused for an extra beat. E.g., ganbatte<\/em> or mawatte<\/em>.
    \nAnother type is when you see double vowels, which means to hold the vowel sound for an extra beat. So ou<\/em> means hold the \u201coh\u201d sound for two beats, and ii<\/em> means hold the \u201cee\u201d sound for two beats. In karate-dou<\/em>, the \u201cdoh\u201d is drawn out for an extra beat. (In Romaji, the double-o is represented as “ou” or more commonly with a horizontal line overtop: \u014d.)
    \nA third example is when o<\/em> or a<\/em> \u00a0is followed by i. Ai<\/em>, as in gedan barai<\/em>, is pronounced as English \u201ceye.\u201d \u201cAh\u201d and \u201cee\u201d pushed together in one beat = \u201ceye.\u201d Similarly, yoi<\/em> is not pronounced like \u201cyoh-ee\u201d but rather as one syllable: \u201cyoy.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Speaking of, here are the Romaji \u201dvowels\u201d and their sounds in Japanese:
    \n
    \na<\/em> is pronounced like \u201cah.\u201d
    \ne<\/em> is pronounced like \u201ceh\u201d in the beginning or middle of a word, and like \u201cay\u201d at the end of a word. So, karate = \u00a0kah-rah-tay. But neko (cat) is neh-ko.
    \ni<\/em> is pronounced like \u201cee.\u201d
    \no<\/em> is pronounced like \u201coh.\u201d
    \nu<\/em> is pronounced like \u201coo\u201d \u00a0— with no \u201cy\u201d sound.
    \nBy the way, we say a-e-i-o-u<\/em> in English, The sequence in Japanese is ah-ee-oo-eh-oh<\/em>, or, using the Romaji letters., a-i-u-e-o.<\/li>\n
  4. Each syllable gets pronounced with roughly equal emphasis and pitch, compared to most other languages. There are fluctuations, but they are subtle.<\/li>\n
  5. G<\/em> is always pronounced with a hard-g sound, and j <\/em>with the soft \u201cg\u201d sound.<\/li>\n
  6. Y<\/em> is always pronounced as a consonant sound, not as a vowel, as English does with words ending in y, such as \u201cvery.\u201d When you have a consonant and then \u201cy,\u201d such as gyaku<\/em>, the gy<\/em> is pronounced as one sound (one beat).<\/li>\n
  7. J <\/em>is always pronounced as in \u201cjoke.\u201d And every such sound is always rendered as j,<\/em> never g<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  8. R<\/em> is not pronounced the same as in English to begin a word, like \u201crun.\u201d It\u2019s more like the Spanish single \u201cr\u201d \u2013 with a flick of the tongue against the roof of the mouth.<\/li>\n
  9. N<\/em> at the beginning of a word or syllable is pronounced the same as the English \u201cn.\u201d However, at the end of a word or syllable, the sound is made more by constricting your throat (or swallowing the sound), rather than by using your tongue. (An example is san<\/em>, said at the end of someone’s name or as the number 3.) That\u2019s about as well as I can explain it, and for this one, it\u2019s best to listen and imitate. Another example is ganbatte<\/em>, but you can get around this particular challenge by pronouncing that n<\/em> as an \u201cm.\u201d This is the meaning of the anime<\/em> image that is featured at the top of this post.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Quiz time: Which way do you pronounce the n<\/em> in anime<\/em> — the English or the swallowed “n”??<\/p>\n

    Easy one, right? How about in manga<\/em>, which are the comics or graphic novels?<\/p>\n

    p.s. Sorry for the sloppy formatting in this post. I couldn’t get it quite right using the WordPress visual editor, and I’m not about to wade into the code. My HTML ability is about on par with my Japanese …..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Here at Shuto Karate Club, we strive for authenticity when it comes to all things Japanese. (A unkind way of saying this is that we larp as Japanese when we’re on the dojo floor.) So we are trying to learn and utilize Nihongo more (see what I did there?) during practice and in discussing karate. In the near future, I’ll…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[108,129],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3387"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3481,"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3387\/revisions\/3481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shutokarate.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}