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When reading Japanese, am I supposed to read nouns with particles together like it's one word? like in this sentence:
「音読」をするときは、口や舌を動かさなければなりません。
"口や舌を(くちやしたを)" is pronounced as a single word (according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIMyS4gWUio at 1:13) but in this sentence:
音の高低や強弱も聞いた通りに真似をして言ってみてください。
"音の高低や強弱も" is pronounced as "音の高低や 強弱も" (same video at 0:41)
Either is fine.
Hashimoto grammer, which is one of the standard Japanese grammer systems, has a basic concept called bunsetsu (ぶんせつ 文節 sentence segments). He considered any Japanese sentense can be split into 文節.
Here are some examples first.
「音読」を|する|ときは、|口や|舌を|動かさなければ|なりません。
音の|高低や|強弱も|聞いた|通りに|真似を|して|言って|みて|ください。
He calaimed that
There cannot be any pause inside a 文節.
Each 文節's pitch accent is not affected by other 文節
There can be a short pause between 文節s.
Some pronunciation changes slightly depending on the position in 文節.
So you can put as many pauses as you want in these places. It does not sound fluent if you do too many, though.
