Pronunciation of the Japanese "ou" dipthong

[Golgo_13]

Just wanted to throw this out at y'all.

Words such as コーナー (corner) might be romanized into "kounaa" because there is no way to romanize the dash-like line "ー" to elongate the vowel o in "ko". THis line is used primarily used in Katakana, BTW.

Even if a word like コーナー is romanized kounaa, the "ou" should not be pronounced like the English word "owe".

Do you know how a person in Minnesota would pronounce the word "boat"? Instead of b + "owe" + t, they pronounce it with only the vowel o elongated without the u sound. This is a remnant of the Skandianavian or Dutch/German accent of the people who settled there.

The Japanese オー is pronounced the same way.

When the "o" vowel has to be elongated in Hiragana, it is written out おう because the dash-like line cannot be used. But it's still pronounced the same way as オー.

But since おう is literally written with an お and an う the dipthing "ou" has come to be used to romanize the written おう, but the proper pronunciation still remains the same as the オー sound.

I hope I'm making this clear. If not, please let moi know.

 

[jeisan]

well if we dont know how a person in minnesota would pronounce "boat" it doesnt help much... but persoanlly i read the japanese "ou" as i read the english one as in the word "you" dont know if thats right or not though...

 

[Glenn]

Originally posted by jeisan
well if we dont know how a person in minnesota would pronounce "boat" it doesnt help much... but persoanlly i read the japanese "ou" as i read the english one as in the word "you" dont know if thats right or not though...

That would be more like う. The お sound is pretty much the same as the long "o" in English, like in the word "so." By the way, the point that Golgo_13 brings up is the reason that I like circumflexes in romanization. Re: "o (with circumflex)" vs. "oo", "ou" explains this a bit, and I mentioned it in Kennin - Sword man? Or hidden sword?.

 

[Golgo_13]

Originally posted by Glenn
That would be more like う. The お sound is pretty much the same as the long "o" in English, like in the word "so." By the way, the point that Golgo_13 brings up is the reason that I like circumflexes in romanization. Re: "o (with circumflex)" vs. "oo", "ou" explains this a bit, and I mentioned it in Kennin - Sword man? Or hidden sword?.

Not quite the same as the long "o" spoken by the average English speaker.

However, again, the Japanese long "o" is similar to that spoken by a heavily-accented Minnesotan.

You'll know what I'm talking about if you ever see the film "Fargo". Even an Oriental guy in that movie spoke with a Minnesotan accent. LOL!