Native English speakers strongly pronounce plosive, such as "T", "P" and "B", for Japanese. Japanese don't pronounce them so strongly. So when I hear English conversation, those sound a bit too much, especially "T". They pronounce "T" very strongly.
On the other hand, sound of "T" sometimes disappears.
For example;
Twenty --> I can hear "tweny".
Internet --> I can hear "innernet"
Hmm... strange...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Hi S - Americans like me tend to pronounce their "plosives" (gotta be a linguist to know THAT word) rather weakly if at all, while the British tend towards a harder sound for the same. When I tell an American how to pronounce "ra ri ru re ro" I tell them to say it like the "tty" in Betty, and they usually nail it the first try. We don't say BetTy with a hard T but rather with a cross between a d and l. Very similar to the Japanese "ri".
As you say, native speakers sometimes pronounce "T" like "ra, ri, ru, re, ro", for example, "T" of "get up" sounds like "ra".
But they strongly pronounce "t" of "tell me", "talk about" and "training".
By the way, most difficult pronunciation for me is "L". I wonder what Japanese pronunciation is hard to pronounce for non-Japanese.
Hmm, I have trouble with Rya Ryu Ryo. And every time I say my company name eSolia when getting a ryoshusho at a shop, I have to repeat myself a few times. So there is obviously something just a little off with my pronunciation.
You know, my kids thought Bob Marley's "Get up, Stand up" was "gero, stero!" So much for having a native speaker of English in the house!
Rya, Ryu, Ryo are difficult for non-Japanese. I see. I wonder if there aren't those pronunciations in English.
Do you usually talk with your kids in Japanese? haha.
Well, I don't think "rya" is a very common sound in English. I try to talk to my daughters in English. They have unfortunately learned the bad words as well as the good, lol!
Haha. People tend to learn bad words first. I know many non-Japanese who can't speak Japanese but know some bad Japanese words!
Post a Comment