FG needs Japanese help to be saved from evil j-boss

[GrimJim]

My evil j-boss thinks my poor Japanese skills are to blame for poor business. So I gotta improve my skills, cause I'd like to keep my job.

I'm probably somewhere between level 1 & 2, or somewhere between advanced and intermediate. However, I am pretty good with kanji.

I know everyone says Japanese pronunciation is easy, but I suck. How to get the pronunciation down? I haven't found any good information on how to go about this. How the hell did Julie Dreyfus in Kill Bill do it?

Any tips will be appreciated!

[Taro Toporific]

How the hell did Julie Dreyfus in Kill Bill do it?!

She's French and most French FGs would rather learn Japanese than have to speak devil-English all the time.

Julie lived here for years. She learned Japanese while she was still in her teens so of course she sounds good. She's done a bunch of movies Japan, even one with ol' Taro as an extra in it, "Legal Aliens". (Hint: The reason why she doesn't have a fight scene in KILL BILL is that her butt could match my lard ass pound for pound yard for yard, ).

[devicenull]

[Ptyx]

Well japanese is easy fro french gaijin because french has the exact same "phonems" (i don't know if it translates like that in english) as japanese. The only sounds that differs are the "u" and the famous "r".

[devicenull]

Well japanese is easy fro french gaijin because french has the exact same "phonems" (i don't know if it translates like that in english) as japanese. The only sounds that differs are the "u" and the famous "r".

yep, same phonemes. place of articulation for the [r] is different though. [r] is a key, have found. everyone in my class who still uses an english [r] speaks slowly and sounds very.. 'gaijin'. myself and 2 others use the japanese [r] and can keep up with the teachers and it flows more. comes in handy when we get graded on such things... the rest of the class has not figured this out yet, and seeing as there is a curve, we are staying silent with amused grins as they struggle (while the teachers also try hard to hold back the laughter)

[kamome]

I picked up good hatsuon pretty quickly just by paying close attention to what people are saying, how they are saying it, and watching how their mouth moves. You have to listen intently to perfect your Japanese pronounciation. Perhaps if your kanji is better than your hatsuon, you have been doing more book studying than conversational practice. Shift your focus to kaiwa and leave the books on the shelf.

[AssKissinger]

I just can't correctly pronounce words starting with 'tsu'. The only way is for me to say the word 'cats' in my head and start with the 'tsu' from there but obviously that's not possible in a real life conversation. For the life of me I can't hear the difference between 'tsu' and 'su'. If someone is pointing out the difference I can hear the stress but in normal spoken converstaion it sounds the the same to me. I also have trouble hearing and saying 'ryu' and ryo'. Also for a long time I thought that the idea that the little 'tsu' in a word actually had an effect on the pronunciation was just a bunch a crap.

[moogen]

Also for a long time I thought that the idea that the little 'tsu' in a word actually had an effect on the pronunciation was just a bunch a crap

eh?? it does have a big effect... adds another consonant to the word, and completely changes it. take chotto... it's pronounced chot-to instead of cho-to. well, it's kinda hard for FG's to pick it out, but the J's can pick it up easy. also, the extra u's are noticeable to - took me a long time to figure out the difference between a beauty salon and a hospital when spoken to me

[devicenull]

[Big Booger]

My guide to J-pronuncation:

Get a jar of peanut butter.. preferably the creamy kind.. now take two tablespoons and stick in your mouth.

Now never open your mouth wider than your pinky finger...

Never move your tongue. Never inhale air into the mouth cavity.

Once you get used to talking with the peanut butter in your mouth, then slowly reduce the amount, all the while acting like you have put 2 tablespoons of peanut butter in your mouth.

Eventually you will get down to no peanut butter, but you will sound like you have your mouth full of the stuff.

With that skill you can talk like the best mush mouth jiji in all of Japan.


Honestly, talk more with Japanese. watch J-TV. PRactice in a mirror and focus on how they pronounce words, phrases, syllables, etc.. Tape record or video tape yourself speaking in japanese.. it will help.

One note, get a male teacher if possible. I took 3 years of extensive Japanese in college.. and my teacher was a female. Now I sound like a female when I talk...

I use female terms more so than I should.. It all stems from immitating her talk and speech..

[kamome]

My guide to J-pronuncation:

Get a jar of peanut butter.. preferably the creamy kind.. now take two tablespoons and stick in your mouth.

One note, get a male teacher if possible. I took 3 years of extensive Japanese in college.. and my teacher was a female. Now I sound like a female when I talk...

I use female terms more so than I should.. It all stems from immitating her talk and speech..

All good (and funny) points. Much of Japanese pronunciation is about moving your mouth and lips as minimally as possible. Americans are used to opening their mouths wide to effect sounds, but that habit has to be curtailed to speak Japanese well.

I also would definitely recommend a male teacher. Like BB, I had a female teacher in college (and a Japanese girlfriend) and I started to sound like a woman in Japanese. It took a supreme effort to "masculinize" my Japanese speech, but it has paid off as a hallmark of fluency.