A silly question: How would you pronounce "kanji" to an American ?

[gotoh]

こんにちは
I'm presently working on a tool to drill people with their kanjis. It uses a Text-to-speech program and at the beginning of each exercise, the program will announce "This lesson will have xxx kanjis", and say of bunch of English words to which the student must find the correct kanji for each of them, based on the JDic database or the Heisig Index.

Now, I could be a purist and try to teach my TTS to use "pure" Japanese phones (which is unrealistic). My mother tongue is French and I use the word "kanji" in a loose French-Canadien way, without sophistication. And I was wondering, how Americans or English-Canadians would pronounce "kanji": Do you say can-ji like in "I can do it!" or "kan-ji" as in "concrete" or "The Wrath of Khan".

Thanks for your input.

 

[Grandpa Frank]

Never heard can-ji before?

Always heard it as kahn-G.

Uncle Frank

 

[yukio_michael]

If you are pronouncing it 'can-ji', you are pronouncing it wrong. There isn't the same leeway as is given to speakers of English as a second language.

Japanese who learn English from Australians tend to have an Australian accent, but in Japanese you only have flat-atonal speech with no accent, or tonal speech with accent... there's not much room for the difference in how か is pronounced.

 

[nice gaijin]

Japanese phonemes are not that difficult; ignoring proper pronunciation just ensures the proliferation of bad accents. Incidentally, I have never heard an american use [æ] (as in "can") when pronouncing "kanji"

Also, the plural for "kanji," is "kanji."

 

[JimmySeal]

Americans who have been learning Japanese, or have lived in Japan usually pronounce it about right. Other people might say CAN-GEE, or might say it correctly.

But that shouldn't matter, for a TTS system in a kanji learning program, the users should be willing to accept the word pronounced correctly. And I agree that the plural should be "kanji," not "kanjis."

 

[gotoh]

I guess it's khan-ji then.

Japanese phonemes are not that difficult; ignoring proper pronunciation just ensures the proliferation of bad accents.

Oh, I agree. But try telling that to my TTS. Usually, an affordable TTS works with a single vocabulary file (generaly named "Peter" or "Diane"), with few parameters for tweaking. I have a friend in the TTS business and he helps building some cutting-edge stuff but the price for a licence is prohibitive. So I can't expect an "affordable" American vocuabulary file to create the "perfect" pronounciation of Japanese words. I'm simply minimizing the obstacles as I go along (unless of course some nice person wants to record for free 6,000 English words for those who also want perfect English. )

Once I'll be sure that my work respects the KanjiDic licence, I'll publish some of it on my site and let the public tell me want they think.

 

[The7thSamurai]

Yeah, the "ah" in kanji is like the "uh" sound in "up". English speakers always pronounce it wrong, using the "ah" sound as in "apple". Japanese does not have the "ah" sound. That's why they pronouce "apple" and "up" with the same vowel sound.

 

[yukio_michael]

Yeah, the "ah" in kanji is like the "uh" sound in "up". English speakers always pronounce it wrong, using the "ah" sound as in "apple". Japanese does not have the "ah" sound. That's why they pronouce "apple" and "up" with the same vowel sound.

The "a" phoneme should be pronounced like the a in father which is pretty much an "ah" sound, not an "uh" sound, so I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here.

 

[Mike Cash]

He is saying that "apple" and "up" become アップル and アップ.

 

[PaulTB]

He is saying that "apple" and "up" become アップル and アップ.

My up's aren't oops but I'm not sure they're apps either.

This is why I have completely given up on explaining pronunciations based on how other words sound. Hint: People from different places say words in different ways.

(Well I'm sure you knew that, Mike)

Probably my best three tips for pronouncing Japanese.

1. Listen to Japanese (radio, video etc.)
2. Record yourself speaking Japanese so you know just how stupid you sound.
3. Talk to Japanese people.

 

[JimmySeal]

He is saying that "apple" and "up" become アップル and アップ.

It really looks like he's saying あ is pronounced with the U sound from "up:"

Yeah, the "ah" in kanji is like the "uh" sound in "up".

But maybe he pronounced "up" with an /a/ sound.

 

[yukio_michael]

He is saying that "apple" and "up" become アップル and アップ.

Maybe he meant to say that there is no phonetic difference between "uh" and "ah", in Japanese when considering loanwords, but I don't think that's what he actually said.

 

[The7thSamurai]

It really looks like he's saying あ is pronounced with the U sound from "up:"

That's what I'm saying, sorry if it was confusing . I'm not sure if it makes a difference but I said all that with my Australian accent in mind. あ is pronounced with the 'u' sound from 'up', not the 'a' sound from 'apple'. Japanese are often surprised when I say there is a difference in the vowel sound between 'apple' and 'up', and if they listen very carefully they can usually get it.

 

[The7thSamurai]

And while we're on the subject of Japanese pronunciation, another thing native English speakers have to be careful of is pronouncing syllables with dipthongs. Like the Canadian who insisted that と was pronounced "toe". He didn't seem to understand that the vowel sound is supposed to be flat and almost cut off at the end.

 

[yukio_michael]

And while we're on the subject of Japanese pronunciation, another thing native English speakers have to be careful of is pronouncing syllables with dipthongs.

That's right. There are no diphthongs in Japanese, this is why words like hai seem strange to English speakers sometimes, because when they hear it pronounced correctly, as the sounds "ha" & "ee" in rapid succession, instead of "high", it sounds exaggerated.

 

[JimmySeal]

That's what I'm saying, sorry if it was confusing . I'm not sure if it makes a difference but I said all that with my Australian accent in mind. あ is pronounced with the 'u' sound from 'up', not the 'a' sound from 'apple'. Japanese are often surprised when I say there is a difference in the vowel sound between 'apple' and 'up', and if they listen very carefully they can usually get it.

I see, that makes sense. I think most people outside Australia pronounce 'up' with a schwa,

which is definitely not the same as あ.