Why is ジ a soft "ji" in Asia (アジア), but in John (ジョン) - ジ is a hard "ji"?
Is it just pronunciation or is there an actual discernable/readable difference?
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That's interesting. Please note though that ジ is treated differently from ジョ. – rebuuilt Jun 5 '20 at 12:12
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1This is just me, but I think they have the same "hardness" – rebuuilt Jun 5 '20 at 12:13
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I'm surprised that this already has a best answer. There is indeed a difference for many speakers, especially of Tokyo dialect or standard Japanese, between j-sounds at the beginning of a word or after a consonant and those between vowels. Likewise, there is a difference between the other z-sounds depending on the phenomic environment. I can't remember no where I first came across this, but it is worth researching in a japanese resource, by which I mean written in Japanese. – James Edwards Jun 5 '20 at 15:06
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@James Edwards Can you be more specific on how the positioning of ĵ affects the pronunciation of it? – kandyman Jun 5 '20 at 15:59
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1@Dane Brouwer I found an interesting thread which seems to explain your question, so I have removed my own answer as it might be misleading. Check here: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/18094/… – kandyman Jun 6 '20 at 10:58
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