Tagged Questions
9
votes
1answer
108 views
「はは」(母) and ハ行転呼
It occurred to me the other day that if ハ行転呼 had affected all applicable environments without exception, 母 /haha/ (or I guess properly it was /ɸaɸa/, right?)should have become /hawa/.
The Japanese ...
6
votes
2answers
318 views
Rules for emphasizing by lengthening sounds
Sometimes, sounds are lengthened for emphasis. For example, see "とっても versus とても".
What are the rules governing this process?
Are there restrictions on where lengthening can be inserted?
とっても or ...
11
votes
5answers
340 views
Except for pitch, what are the differences in pronunciation between Kansaiben and Tokyoben?
I have tried to ask people this type of question on many occasions and the answer is always the same, but people are notoriously bad at evaluating their own language, so I ask here:
Apart for pitch, ...
16
votes
3answers
533 views
How 「えい」 should be pronounced in the words like 英語, 先生, etc?
P.S.: I heard that 「生」 (せい) in the word 先生 can be pronounced either as [sei] or as [see]. If it is so, is there any semantic difference between these variants?
6
votes
2answers
251 views
Utterance initial [ɾ]
According to The sounds of Japanese (Vance 2008):
When /ɾ/ is the first phoneme in an utterance, the tip of the tongue is already resting lightly on the alveolar ridge, and /ɾ/ is produced by ...
7
votes
2answers
525 views
Why is the Japanese currency pronounced “yen” in English?
I'm wondering what the reason for the mispronunciation of 円 in English came to be "yen". I can understand how some words like 東京 became "Tokyo", but "en" to "yen" seems strange. On a side note, why is ...
7
votes
2answers
383 views
Are there many words that have the same pronunciation ambiguity as Nihon/Nippon?
Wikipedia says that 日本 can be pronounced either [にっぽん]{nippon} or [にほん]{nihon}.
Does this ambiguity in pronunciation happen with other words? If so, does it only happen with words that originated ...
12
votes
3answers
651 views
Actual phonetic realization of “devoiced” vowels
Descriptions of Japanese phonology (such as Wikipedia's) usually describe high vowels between voiceless consonants (or word-finally) as "devoiced". For example, the pronunciation of ⟨圧⟩ 'pressure' and ...
14
votes
3answers
725 views
Why the “H” is pronounced Sh in some cases.
I came from Stack Overflow and new to Japanese language. Happy I found out about this great place.
My first question is about the rules of pronunciation of the letter "H".
Like "Hijutsu" or "Hiyori".
...
22
votes
3answers
1k views
What are the differences between じ and ぢ, and ず and づ?
The Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries can mostly be described as phonetic. But there are two exceptions, the two pairs of syllables modified to be voiced with the dakuten diacritic which ...
30
votes
3answers
948 views
What are the rules regarding “mute vowels” (“u” after “s” and “i” after “sh”)?
When you first begin to learn Japanese you are taught that Japanese has no stress and each syllable should be pronounced equally.
You also learn that certain vowels are not pronounced, or only ...
