Wait, how does ch/j or sh differ from the English sounds? And what words use zh? I don’t think I’ve seen that romaji
Comment on English may be a hot mess but at least we don't have to worry about this nonsense
force@lemmy.world 4 months agoYeah in Japanese a few consonant sounds like ‘r’ and ‘l’ sounds or ‘h’/‘f’ or ‘s’/‘th’ or ‘z’/‘ð’ are basically heard as the same (an American ‘r’ might even sound like a weird ‘w’ to Japanese), and English has around 17 to 24 distinctive vowel sounds generally (based on quality) while Japanese has 5 plus vowel length and tones (pitch accent). As a result of the phonetic differences between the languages, it can be hard to hear or recreate the differences in sound quality (especially when it’s Japanese on the speaking/listening end, but Americans also sure have a terrible time trying to make Japanese sounds like the “n” or “r” or “ch”/“j” or “sh”/“zh” or “f” or “u”. they just perceive it as the same as the closest sounds in English)
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
force@lemmy.world 4 months ago
They are all palatal sibilants, while in english they’re post-palatal/palato-alveolar. And the “ch”/“j”/“sh”/“zh” sounds I speak of are just common variations of “t”/“d”/“s”/“z” that occur before “i” (si -> shi, zi -> zhi, ti -> chi, di -> ji). Usually “zhi” isn’t spelled out in Rōmaji though. The “h” in “hi” also sounds different. Before “u” some consonants also change (hu -> fu, tu -> tsu, du -> dzu).
tiredofsametab@kbin.run 4 months ago
English also doesn't have gemination (small tsu) which does make a difference in Japanese as well. Hearing that in very quick Japanese for words I don't know can still be different. Same with vowel length. Once you know the word, it doesn't matter as much how someone says it, but when it's new vocab and the speaker is very quick, it can be tough.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
I didn’t know the technical term gemination for っ, appreciate it. Can’t it manifest somewhat similarly to stops/plosives though? English doesn’t generally use those followed by the same consonant within the same word, but the phrase “port ten” is almost like the t consonant in itte, but with less of a pause in the middle. Contrast it with the word “portend” and you can see that we have a little bit more of a pause in “port ten”.
tiredofsametab@kbin.run 4 months ago
When I say "port ten" and ポッテン (with or without the long 'o') it seems I'm doing something different. Maybe a glottal stop and hard attack? I'm not actually a linguist though, so I could be very wrong.