"House" and "no"

Tokis-Phoenix · 16 Jan 2008

I'm learning japanese with my fiance because we plan on going to japan in autumn, i have a question though concerning the pronunciation of certain words though (and i will probably get plenty more of those questions in this thread as time goes by lol!).

From what i understand, "no" "ie" is pronounced like "ee-eh"? But "house", "iie", is also pronounced the same yes? Or is it pronounced differently?

epigene · 16 Jan 2008

"No" is pronounced in three syllables: i-i-eh

House is in 2 syllables: i-eh

(Here, the letter "i" represents the short i pronunciation.)

HTH!

nice gaijin · 17 Jan 2008

They both actually have the same number of syllables, but the first sound in "no" is twice as long as "house."

written in hiragana, this becomes clear: いえ (house), いいえ (no). Usually, the context will make it clear what you are saying.

NattyBumppo · 17 Jan 2008

nice gaijin said:
They both actually have the same number of syllables, but the first sound in "no" is twice as long as "house."

No, いいえ is three syllables. いえ is two. Each of the い (in Japanese モーラ counting at least) counts as an individual syllable.

magevampjoe · 17 Jan 2008

That is correct. (Soory, No IME)
ie = house
iie = no
Length varies. Typically ii from iie is double the length of ie in house.
When speaking though, if you don't know if you can make this sound, say 'iya' for no, and ie for house.

'Iya' also means 'no'.

When listening, context will tell you what is being said.
For example;
'andysan no ie wa aka desu' Andy's house is red. This would make no sense if you took it as 'andysan no iie wa akai desu'. (Andy's no is red)

Context will always be the key.

Gambattekudasai.

nice gaijin · 17 Jan 2008

NattyBumppo said:
No, いいえ is three syllables. いえ is two. Each of the い (in Japanese モーラ counting at least) counts as an individual syllable.

Mora != Syllable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)

NattyBumppo · 17 Jan 2008

nice gaijin said:
Mora != Syllable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)

Yeah, you're right.

Explaining Japanese phonetics in terms of syllables isn't very helpful at all, then!

nice gaijin · 17 Jan 2008

well, there are still syllables in Japanese and they still play an important role, but it's easy to get morae and syllables confused because most people don't know what a mora is, which leads to people calling hiragana and katakana "syllabaries."

But yes, when people are counting sounds in words they are counting the morae. Native speakers do this intuitively, but commonly fail to make the distinction between the two.

Elizabeth · 17 Jan 2008

magevampjoe said:
That is correct. (Soory, No IME)
ie = house
iie = no
Length varies. Typically ii from iie is double the length of ie in house.
When speaking though, if you don't know if you can make this sound, say 'iya' for no, and ie for house.

'Iya' also means 'no.'

Learn to clearly articulate いいえ。いや is totally different and will only work to sow confusion.

"House" and "no"

Tokis-Phoenix

先輩

epigene

相変わらず不束者です

nice gaijin

Resident Realist

NattyBumppo

先輩

magevampjoe

Sempai

nice gaijin

Resident Realist

NattyBumppo

先輩

nice gaijin

Resident Realist

Elizabeth

先輩

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