Difference in pronunciation for things like かな vs かんあ

Haruto Uzumaki · 22 May 2022

I've been wondering for a while, cause I've seen in romaji especially that there are certain markings when things like this happen: かんお would be like kan'o and かの would just be kano, right? (Probably not real words, just an example)

What is the difference in pronunciation in these cases where the ん is separate from the vowel sound?

Also, I think I (mostly) understand the double vowel sounds, like ちきゅう（地球）or くうき（空気）

But double consonant sounds sometimes confuse me, like
であった
How exactly would that sound vs であた? Also rules and exceptions would be the easiest way to explain it to me.
Is it simply just like de at-ta (ending the あwith a T sound then saying た) cause when I listen to Japanese songs I find this to only happen sometimes... Sometimes it sounds exactly the same to me as if there was only one T, and that's confusing...

Or sometimes, I hear an extension of the vowel sound before the double consonant (sounding like "de aata") but that makes even less sense to me because then it would sound more like でああた, right?

I've been thinking about it for a while but this is pretty much the only pattern I can't grasp from Japanese speech/singing

Majestic · 22 May 2022

I think it might be interesting for you to check out some videos posted by one of our posters here @JapaneseLily . She has a good sized collection of videos on YouTube where she teaches Japanese grammar and language. Maybe she'll do a video that explains words like you describe かんおん vs かのん or ふんいき vs ふにんき which can be confusing.

But generally, the difference is very subtle, and when spoken rapidly it can seem like there is no difference at all. Its the context of the sentence which will help you distinguish which one is being said.

That will be a recurring theme in your Japanese studies. The context is everything. Japanese is a much more context-driven language than English.

Haruto Uzumaki · 22 May 2022

Majestic said:
Its the context of the sentence which will help you distinguish which one is being said.

Ahh, I see, makes sense then, I can accept that

Majestic said:
The context is everything. Japanese is a much more context-driven language than English.

As I've learned long ago thinking Google translate would help me learn but years later after knowing a lot more about Japan than I did before, now I know Google translate barely understands context, so translating stuff as simple as "read" is a problem for it cause there's read and there's read, stuff like that depends on the sentence formed around it I really gotta print out Genki I do I can start learning more in depth

Majestic said:
I think it might be interesting for you to check out some videos posted by one of our posters here @JapaneseLily

I check out her videos sometimes, whenever I see a new one posted except long videos cause I'm not ready for that yet

JapaneseLily · 22 May 2022

Majestic said:
I think it might be interesting for you to check out some videos posted by one of our posters here @JapaneseLily . She has a good sized collection of videos on YouTube where she teaches Japanese grammar and language. Maybe she'll do a video that explains words like you describe かんおん vs かのん or ふんいき vs ふにんき which can be confusing.

But generally, the difference is very subtle, and when spoken rapidly it can seem like there is no difference at all. Its the context of the sentence which will help you distinguish which one is being said.

That will be a recurring theme in your Japanese studies. The context is everything. Japanese is a much more context-driven language than English.

Thank you very much for mentioning my youtube channel

JapaneseLily · 22 May 2022

Haruto Uzumaki said:
I've been wondering for a while, cause I've seen in romaji especially that there are certain markings when things like this happen: かんお would be like kan'o and かの would just be kano, right? (Probably not real words, just an example)

What is the difference in pronunciation in these cases where the ん is separate from the vowel sound?

Also, I think I (mostly) understand the double vowel sounds, like ちきゅう（地球）or くうき（空気）

But double consonant sounds sometimes confuse me, like
であった
How exactly would that sound vs であた? Also rules and exceptions would be the easiest way to explain it to me.
Is it simply just like de at-ta (ending the あwith a T sound then saying た) cause when I listen to Japanese songs I find this to only happen sometimes... Sometimes it sounds exactly the same to me as if there was only one T, and that's confusing...

Or sometimes, I hear an extension of the vowel sound before the double consonant (sounding like "de aata") but that makes even less sense to me because then it would sound more like でああた, right?

I've been thinking about it for a while but this is pretty much the only pattern I can't grasp from Japanese speech/singing

Hello. Thank you very much for having visited my channel
I send you this Playlist only about Pronunciation, I hope these videos in this playlist can help you somehow

JapaneseLily · 22 May 2022

Haruto Uzumaki said:
Ahh, I see, makes sense then, I can accept that

As I've learned long ago thinking Google translate would help me learn but years later after knowing a lot more about Japan than I did before, now I know Google translate barely understands context, so translating stuff as simple as "read" is a problem for it cause there's read and there's read, stuff like that depends on the sentence formed around it I really gotta print out Genki I do I can start learning more in depth

I check out her videos sometimes, whenever I see a new one posted except long videos cause I'm not ready for that yet

I thought I sent you a link of playlist with several videos about pronunciation, but I see only one video ん...but there are more videos for example small tsu sound and so on, I hope you can watch exactly what you need to know. Maybe here Playlists cannot be sent but only one video

mdchachi · 22 May 2022

JapaneseLily said:
Maybe here Playlists cannot be sent but only one video

It worked but it starts playing the first video. However you can see in the upper right corner that it's a playlist of 7 items.

mdchachi · 22 May 2022

You can type in text and have it read out on various sites including deepl. It can help you get a feel for the pronunciation rules.

DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator

Translate texts & full document files instantly. Accurate translations for individuals and Teams. Millions translate with DeepL every day.

www.deepl.com

JapaneseLily · 22 May 2022

mdchachi said:
It worked but it starts playing the first video. However you can see in the upper right corner that it's a playlist of 7 items.
View attachment 87423

Thank you very much for this explanation

Haruto Uzumaki · 23 May 2022

JapaneseLily said:
Hello. Thank you very much for having visited my channel
I send you this Playlist only about Pronunciation, I hope these videos in this playlist can help you somehow

Thanks, I'll check it out right now!

Haruto Uzumaki · 23 May 2022

mdchachi said:
You can type in text and have it read out on various sites including deepl. It can help you get a feel for the pronunciation rules.

DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator

Translate texts & full document files instantly. Accurate translations for individuals and Teams. Millions translate with DeepL every day.

www.deepl.com

Thanks! But, I don't understand how to make it say anything in Japanese... I don't know if I'm doing it wrong but for me it seems to simply be a translator with no audio option...

mdchachi · 23 May 2022

Haruto Uzumaki said:
Thanks! But, I don't understand how to make it say anything in Japanese... I don't know if I'm doing it wrong but for me it seems to simply be a translator with no audio option...

I'm using a PC and for me there's a speaker icon I can push to read out what's written there.

Haruto Uzumaki · 23 May 2022

mdchachi said:
I'm using a PC and for me there's a speaker icon I can push to read out what's written there.
View attachment 87450

Ah, even with desktop mode on my phone it didn't show, but on my computer it does
Thank you
However...

I don't think that's the correct meaning...

nice gaijin · 23 May 2022

Some things to note,

Japanese is moraic, meaning it has a specific cadence where each mora (usually represented by one kana) has an equal "count"
The "long vowel" extends said vowel for an extra "count"
The small tsu serves to elongate the following consonant, which is usually (but not always) a fricative (s, sh) or plosive (p, t, k). See the link below for examples.
the ん is only syllable-final, meaning it can only come at the end of a syllable (san-byaku, za-zen, en-gi), so any sound that follows it is the head of a new syllable
While we've touched on some of the finer points of the moraic nasal in other threads, the key point to remember is that it's not just an "n," it's a special phoneme in Japanese that becomes a nasalized consonant using the mouth position of the following sound, be it vowel or consonant. Before a B, P, or M it'll become an M, and before a G or K it'll be "NG" (IPA: ŋ ). There are many ways to realize this character, it's quite fascinating!
The っ isn't placed before ん, but if ん comes before a kana from the ナ行 (the "na" column, or mora that are headed by "n"), it's like a long "n." That's because "n" is already nasalized, so there's no sound change.
Sometimes (usually in casual vernacular or sound effects) a っ will appear at the end a word, which is used to mark a sudden sharp glottal stoppage of air, effectively cutting that word-final mora's "count" short.

Google translate also lets you use robo-voice for the target language. I just set it to EN>JP and put Japanese in the english part, it'll show the Japanese unchanged and let you hit the "listen" icon to hear the words pronounced. Here are a few word pairs to demonstrate the long vowels and other things I mentioned above.

mdchachi · 23 May 2022

Haruto Uzumaki said:
I don't think that's the correct meaning...

It's not smart enough to know when you put in a nonsense word. So it will still try to come up with something. I tried typing in something random and it still tried to translate it.

Toritoribe · 24 May 2022

Haruto Uzumaki said:
What is the difference in pronunciation in these cases where the ん is separate from the vowel sound?

I believe you can recognize the difference among "na, n'a and nna", "ni, n'i and nni", etc., relatively easily.

Google 翻訳

translate.google.co.jp

Haruto Uzumaki · 26 May 2022

Toritoribe said:
I believe you can recognize the difference among "na, n'a and nna", "ni, n'i and nni", etc., relatively easily.

Google 翻訳

åèªããã¬ã¼ãºãã¦ã§ããã¼ã¸ãæ¥æ¬èªãã 100 ä»¥ä¸ã®ä»è¨èªã«ããã«ç¿»è¨³ã§ãã Google ã®ç¡æãµã¼ãã¹ã§ãã

translate.google.co.jp

Kinda reminds me of the Siri moaning glitch but thanks, the JapaneseLily video made it easier to understand and hear though cause it was done without synthesized speech artifacts

Haruto Uzumaki · 26 May 2022

nice gaijin said:
The small tsu serves to elongate the following consonant, which is usually (but not always) a fricative (s, sh) or plosive (p, t, k).

Thanks, this is the part I was confused about because of the variations of ways people say it and also sing it, but this seems to be the standard way it's supposed to sound, so thanks for that clarification!

nice gaijin said:
Before a B, P, or M it'll become an M, and before a G or K it'll be "NG" (IPA: ŋ ). There are many ways to realize this character, it's quite fascinating!

Wow, that's quite interesting and I really had no clue about that! I'm going to listen closely to more Japanese speech so I can get a more firm understanding of when this happens, cause it's usually easier for me to learn the rules by just hearing them being followed, than learning the rules themselves

Haruto Uzumaki · 26 May 2022

nice gaijin said:
Google translate also lets you use robo-voice for the target language. I just set it to EN>JP and put Japanese in the english part, it'll show the Japanese unchanged and let you hit the "listen" icon to hear the words pronounced. Here are a few word pairs to demonstrate the long vowels and other things I mentioned above.

Well this sounds much clearer than the other one that was sent by Toritoribe, and for sure confirmed and solidified my understanding for the small Tsu consonants thanks
If you have examples of the ん character sounding like an M or NG, that would be nice too

Haruto Uzumaki · 26 May 2022

mdchachi said:
It's not smart enough to know when you put in a nonsense word. So it will still try to come up with something. I tried typing in something random and it still tried to translate it.
View attachment 87462

Well yeah... But marimasho means "let's go", right?

nice gaijin · 27 May 2022

Haruto Uzumaki said:
Thanks, this is the part I was confused about because of the variations of ways people say it and also sing it, but this seems to be the standard way it's supposed to sound, so thanks for that clarification!

Wow, that's quite interesting and I really had no clue about that! I'm going to listen closely to more Japanese speech so I can get a more firm understanding of when this happens, cause it's usually easier for me to learn the rules by just hearing them being followed, than learning the rules themselves

In phonology these are called "minimal pairs," where two words with different meanings are identical except for a single sound change (like "bat" and "cat"). It makes it very easy to illustrate the difference between two phonemes in a language, or to show how people speaking in accents may substitute one sound for another but still be understood.

In this sense, don't get too hung up on the proper pronunciation of the ん, because even if you always pronounce it as "n," it would still be understandable--you would just have a noticeable accent.

Haruto Uzumaki said:
Well this sounds much clearer than the other one that was sent by Toritoribe, and for sure confirmed and solidified my understanding for the small Tsu consonants thanks
If you have examples of the ん character sounding like an M or NG, that would be nice too

Here are some examples. The machine may be a little hard to hear, just remember that whatever the next sound is going to be make, move your mouth to that position and make a nasal sound (voiced and breathing out the nose), and you'll find that the ん doesn't have a rule, it describes a natural thing that happens when we speak, called assimilation.

Haruto Uzumaki said:
Well yeah... But marimasho means "let's go", right?

参りましょう / Mairimashou is a very polite way of saying 行きましょう / ikimashou, meaning "let's go" or sometimes "let's get started."

mdchachi · 28 May 2022

Haruto Uzumaki said:
Well yeah... But marimasho means "let's go", right?

I honestly didn't catch what you wanted to say which was mairimashou even though you were off by only one letter. (Well two if you count the missing -u at the end.)

Haruto Uzumaki · 2 Jun 2022

nice gaijin said:
In this sense, don't get too hung up on the proper pronunciation of the ん, because even if you always pronounce it as "n," it would still be understandable--you would just have a noticeable accent.

Yeah, I realized I should focus mainly on the most important parts which is being able to speak fluently at all in Japanese and being able to read quickly and write as well, so I can communicate

nice gaijin said:
Here are some examples.

Thanks, I'll check them out shortly after writing this reply

nice gaijin said:
参りましょう / Mairimashou is a very polite way of saying 行きましょう / ikimashou, meaning "let's go" or sometimes "let's get started."

mdchachi said:
I honestly didn't catch what you wanted to say which was mairimashou even though you were off by only one letter. (Well two if you count the missing -u at the end.)

I just found out yesterday, that it was actually mairimashou and not marimasho... I somehow heard and saw it wrong at the same time thanks for the correction

Buntaro · 2 Jun 2022

渦巻さん、

There seems to be some question about the word うん, which is a slang way of saying yes. Take a look at this video. The little girl says うん at 0:02, 0:13, 0:16, 0:43, 1:20, 1:23, 1:37, 1:38, and 2:02. We also see ん！ at 0:22 and 0:44.

Please remember that うん is slang and you should not say it when answering a question from your teacher and other elders. The proper way to say yes is hai.

mdchachi · 3 Jun 2022

Buntaro said:
Please remember that うん is slang and you should not say it when answering a question from your teacher and other elders. The proper way to say yes is hai.

Is a word that everybody knows and uses really "slang"? Is "yeah" slang? I guess it's an arbitrary distinction but I was a little surprised you would characterize it that way.

Difference in pronunciation for things like かな vs かんあ

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