Questions tagged [pronunciation]
発音. How the Japanese language is pronounced. For questions about which readings to use for particular kanji, use the "readings" tag instead.
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Pronunciation of パンツ
In the latest chapter (100作品目) of この美術部には問題がある！ there’s a wordplay episode based on different meanings of パンツ. One character uses it in the sense of pants (trousers) but another understands it as ...
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2answers
617 views
Why is 木の下 pronounced このした instead of きのした?
Does this pronunciation follow a rule of some sort?
I couldn't find any answers online about this example specifically.
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1answer
131 views
How to Pronounce a Kanji When Just Reading it by Itself
I'll elaborate the title with a scenario. If I was, say, in a scenario where I was talking about my favorite kanji, and said "Oh, my favorite kanji is 悪" how do I pronounce 悪 in that ...
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1answer
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働きづめ or 働きずめ? Where does that suffix come from?
While playing a game, one of the characters said (the text is in English and the voice is in Japanese):
君はずっと働きずめだったから、今日はもう寝な。
My conjecture is that the correct written form is 働きずめ, but is that ...
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1answer
115 views
"Good day" as "良い一日": Yoi ichi-nichi vs Yoi tsuitachi?
Do Japanese say "Good day" as the conventional way of their greetings (?):
良い一日。(?)
Furthermore, it seems that:
Google pronounced this as
Yoi ichi-nichi.
But the Google translator shows:...
2
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1answer
214 views
Is the pronunciation of す /sɨ/ or /sɯ/?
The wiki says on 2 separate occasions that it should be /sɨ/, see the pages for Japanese phonology and Gojyuuon.
However, when the endings such as です・ます are pronounced without the reduction of that ...
4
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1answer
133 views
To when, and where, did 合拗音 still have a notable presence in Japan, and are there any dialects, however minor, that still preserve the 合拗音 today?
I found a book published in 1886, which contained an interesting statement pertaining to the realization of the 合拗音:
Natives of Tōkiō and the Northern and Eastern provinces omit the w after k and g ...
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1answer
101 views
Why is 口説く read as くどく?
There's okurigana at the end but for the kanji 口 used onyomi reading "ku" instead of "kuchi"
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2answers
146 views
How do you tell the difference between 決行 and 欠航?
So apparently
決行-けっこう (to carry out)
and
欠航-けっこう (cancelled)
are pronounced the same way? Or does one of them have a different pitch accent pattern? At least Google translate pronounced them the same.
...
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1answer
222 views
Is 宵宮 considered 3 syllables or 4 syllables?
I think everyone can agree that 宵宮(よいみや) has 4 mora. But one side says it has 4 syllables because there are 4 vowels.
The other side says "Yoi" is similar to the かあ in 母さん and thus only have ...
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1answer
106 views
Why is the volitional form of する - しよう, considering the classical post-む pre-spelling reform form was せう which should net *しょう?
Why is the volitional form of する - しよう, considering the pre-spelling reform but post-む form was せう, which according to sound changes and modern kana orthography should become しょう? Especially ...
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1answer
524 views
Pronunciation of 800 / 八百
A Japanese textbook labels the pronunciation of 800 / 八百 as はっぴゃく, but elsewhere labels the pronunciation of 5,800 / 五千八百 as ごせんはっびゃく (emphases added). Should the first syllable of 百 be ぴゃ or びゃ ...
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63 views
Kanji after gairaigo pronunciation [duplicate]
For instance, in "アカウントにサインイン中です。" How is "中" pronounced?
At a purely mental level, I've always maintained the idea that how you read is up to you, which seems to be backed by ...
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1answer
498 views
What is the correct reading of 火防女?
I was playing around in the Japanese version of Dark Souls, and i came across the word 火防女 , which in english they translated as "Firekeeper".
I have not been studying japanese for long, but ...
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0answers
60 views
Pronunciation of おう: long sound (chouonpu) or two separate vowels [duplicate]
Google Translate's pronunciation for the word 思う sounds like /omou/ with two separate vowels sounds /o/ and /u/ at the end:
https://translate.google.com/?sl=ja&tl=en&text=%E6%80%9D%E3%81%86&...
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1answer
123 views
ロンドン橋落ちた is pronounced はし or ばし? [duplicate]
ロンドン橋落ちた (London bridge is falling down) is pronounced はし or ばし?
I heard this from a girl singing in the Guilty Crown episode 1 (8:30 mark). When I went to look it up, Google translate and ichi.moe ...
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3answers
185 views
How many ons does さとる have?
I'm a beginner at Japanese, and I've thought I'd learn the Hiragana alphabet by learning the Japanese words that are most important to me.
Naturally, I started with the word "enlightenment", ...
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3answers
361 views
Hiragana chart: yi, ye, wu - where and how?
A very naïve but logical question:
Why are these missing in the Hiragana chart?
yi,
ye,
wu
If there are, where can I find them? How to write them?
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2answers
137 views
Does Japanese mark restrictive and non-restrictive relatives differently?
I was wondering whether Japanese distinguishes restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in some way, either structurally or prosodically.
English, for example, marks the distinction ...
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1answer
182 views
波比不部保 ([B] sounds) → はひふへほ ([h] or [f] sounds)
Hiragana (平仮名 or 平假名) has its cursive form originated from the Chinese cursive form 草書. You can read from https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%B3%E4%BB%AE%E5%90%8D. Also https://www.hana300.com/aakana....
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1answer
116 views
Distinguishing meaning of 「 庭」 and 「には」aurally
In the sentence, 「私の家の庭には小さな池があります」 the sound 「には」 appears twice in a row. When listening but without any writing to inform interpretation, how will I know whether to interpret the first 「には」 sound as ...
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1answer
110 views
Distinguishing polite form and potential form in speech
Not sure if this question is opinion based, but I think it's worth trying to ask.
Can native/fluent speakers easily distinguish the sound difference between the polite and potential forms of a verb in ...
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1answer
114 views
What's the etymological linkage of 「眉{まゆ}」and「繭{まゆ}」?
I found the etymology of 「眉{まゆ}」 from 眉／まゆ - 語源由来辞典
眉は目の上にあることから、「マノウヘ（目の上）」もしくは「マウヘ（目上）」の意味と考えられる。
ただし、古くは「マヨ」と言い、「マヨ」が音変化して「まゆ」となっている。
そのため、「マノウヘ」「マウヘ」が直接音変化したものではなく、「目の上」の意味を表す言葉に「マヨ」があり、...
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2answers
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How does one pronounce ≒ the symbol for "approximately"?
It appeared simply as "縮尺：≒1/82" and the meaning is quite clear (="approximately 1/82 scale").
Jim Breen's wwwjdic does not seem to contain an entry for the symbol.
jisho.org ...
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2answers
222 views
What is the pronunciation and meaning of 乙って?
I was in the middle of reading a light novel, and I've come across "乙って" at least twice so far. I can't really figure out what it means nor how it's pronounced.
I found it in this sentence ...
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2answers
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How to read 艶肌 in 艶肌メイク
Question: How is the 艶肌 in 艶肌メイク ("glossy skin make-up") pronounced?
Context: An Instagram influencer used 艶肌メイク in one of their posts.
Background: I struggle with newly coined Japanese ...
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1answer
205 views
Pronunciation of long o (e.g. in Street Fighter)—"oo" or "ou"?
I have very little knowledge regarding Japanese, but I'm curious about the pronunciation of the long o. In Street Fighter, according to my basic research, the "ō" in "hadōken" is ...
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1answer
130 views
How to explain the katakana spelling for a foreign name with a long vowel?
Apologies in advance if the title of my question is unclear. Please edit if you can think of a better way to phrase it!
From time to time, you need to explain how a foreign name is spelled in ...
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1answer
279 views
「気にはなれない」- Pronunciation and Parts
I recently came across the term,「気にはなれない」, which seems to align with the phrase "cannot bring oneself to..." in English per the following examples from jisho.org:
私は彼の話を信じる気にはなれない。
I can't ...
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1answer
124 views
宿命 Pronunciation [duplicate]
How do you pronounce “宿命”? Google says it is pronounced “しゅくめい“ but I listened it being pronounced as “さだめ“ in a song, which also is “定め”
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1answer
174 views
Usage of the sound ウェ ''we'' in Duolingo
Duolingo introduces the sound ''we'' as ウェ.
According to my phonetics chart this should be ''ue'' read as one mora, not ''we''.
I did a bit of research and discovered that ゑ and ヱ used to exist for ...
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1answer
548 views
頭【かぶり】を振る and 頭【かしら】を横に振る, why the change in pronunciation?
As the title suggests, why is there a change in pronunciation between 頭【かぶり】を振る and 頭【かしら】を横に振る? As far as I can see, there is no difference between the meanings of the two—デジタル大辞泉 even lists the ...
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55 views
Double/ordinal number expression [duplicate]
I would like to know the pronunciation for these following expressions:
i) (1, 2日), (6, 7日), (7, 8日), (8, 9日), (8, 10日), (18~20日)
ii) 第2日, 第3日, 第4日, 第5日, 第6日, 第7日, 第8日, 第9日, 第10日, 第20日
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contradictory evidence for 何に as (1) なんに and (2) なにに
is 何に pronounced (1) なんに or (2) なにに here: お飲み物は何になさいますか。?
(1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU-hnuSM098 @0:20 provides evidence (NB: despite the possibly incorrect ローマ字 (roumaji) found there and in the &...
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2answers
202 views
Pronunciation of bird counters: 三羽 and 四羽
We have:
一羽 いちわ
二羽 にわ
but it seems the pronunciations of the counter for 3 and 4 are irregular. In each case, are both pronunciations acceptable, or we must use the former?
三羽 さんば、さんわ
四羽 よんば、よんわ
...
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3answers
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Is chairo pronounced as both chai ro and cha iro?
The compound word ''chairo'' obviously comes from ''cha'' and ''iro'' so you would think that the ''a'' and ''i'' would be pronounced separately. But sometimes it sounds (to me) like they are ...
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2answers
178 views
Can I pronounce 十三日 as じゅうみっか?
I wonder if both prounciations of 十三日 are accepted?
じゅうさんにち
じゅうみっか
The reasons I am asking are these:
Windows IME seems to accept it
十四日 is pronouncecd as じゅうよっか, matching the pronunciation of 四日, ...
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2answers
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How to pronounce basic vocabulary
I'm really new at this but I'm a big fan of the Japanese language. I found a list on Quizlet with the most used vocabulary such as to go, to see, etc to learn with their Kanji (I already learned Kana)....
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2answers
106 views
pronunciation of ている
(The question was asked here but the answers didn't really address what I am about to ask.) One rule about long vowels is that the long vowel for え段 is written え段 + い. For instance けいじどうしゃ is ...
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179 views
Can I say na, nano, nanu as "seven" instead of nana?
On my kanji dictionary, below 七, there are several kunyomi among the common ones (nana, nanatsu), they are: na, nano, nanu; it's written that they are nouns themselves and it's the same for the other ...
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1answer
59 views
What is the meaning and pronunciation of 上 in the following sentence?
「新聞・雑誌などの編集上の一区分。」This sentence came from one of the definitions for the word 「欄（らん）」 in the "Super Daijirin" dictionary. I'm having trouble honing in on what specific meaning and ...
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1answer
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How to pronounce "2" in はやぶさ2 (spacecraft / mission)
I'm a beginner. I was watching news about JAXA's はやぶさ2 mission and I think it is pronounced はやぶさ つ. Can someone please confirm that "2" is pronounced "つ" and explain why.
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1answer
219 views
How would you say 16 and 18 with the counter mai? [closed]
My textbook [Japanese from zero 1, George Trombley] gives 6 and 8 as roku mai and hachi mai.
But then gives 16 and 18 as じゅうろっまい juu rommai and じゅうはっまい juu hammai.
Is this correct ?
I am only learning ...
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1answer
125 views
Can a /n/ turn into /r̃/?
I think I heard a nasalized alveolar trill /r̃/ instead of alveolar nasal stop /n/ for the mora na in this video https://youtu.be/LIqnhSpXgtI?t=801 (13:26).
Am I correct?
(Whatever the phone is, is ...
9
votes
1answer
346 views
Understanding how pitch accent changes in words, especially 和語
These words all begin with 花（はな↓）, but they all have different pitch accent patterns.
花火 は↓なび (There is also 花火↓師)
花芽 はな↓め
花見 はなみ↓ (also, 花見↓月 vs 花見時 which is 平板)
Knowing that the pitch accent of each ...
3
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0answers
159 views
What is the reason for the odd vowel values of Japanese ココア?
I've done a bit of digging, and for the life of me, I cannot find any clear record or explanation for why Japanese ココア is pronounced the way it is.
Sources researched to date:
Lots of different ...
2
votes
1answer
133 views
一日二日 pronunciation
I was trying to determine the pitch accent for the phrase 一日二日 when it means "for a day or two" and realised I might not even have the right reading. I thought it would be いちにちににち, but then ...
2
votes
1answer
296 views
Were there any specifics rules that were used to convert Chinese vocabulary into Japanese? Are they still perceptible in Modern Chinese?
I know that when Chinese characters were incorporated into Japanese writing/vocabulary their pronunciation changed to be easier for Japanese people to pronounce, but were there any specific rules? ...
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vote
2answers
202 views
how to know when to say "ha" or "wa" with は
it is going to be the end of week 3 in learning japanese and i've noticed how sometimes in sentences the hiragana は can sound like "wa" as well, why is this so? And also when do i know when ...
