Trouble pronouncing long Japanese words.

[Pencilslave]

Can any Fg's who are pretty fluent in Japanese give me some pronounciation tips? What's turning my poor tongue into a pretzel are incredibly long words like this one: Arukitsuzukemashita.
Also, any suggestions on prounouncing long vowels and doubled consonants(Like in the word kitte) would be greatly appreciated.

[FG Lurker]

[Pencilslave]

[FG Lurker]

A bit more about romaji...

Have you ever met a Japanese student who studied English using katakana notes? Their pronunciation is abysmal, bordering on incomprehensible. Many English speakers manage to figure out what they are saying though, maybe because of the multitude of accents we deal with daily.

Studying Japanese using romaji will do the *same thing* to your Japanese as studying English with katakana does. The biggest difference is that Japanese people will never figure out what you want to say. Honestly, they will think you are speaking a different language.

Beyond the pronunciation issues, Japanese is a language of patterns. Verb conjugation is a good example of this. You will quickly see the pattern with kana, but likely never see it with romaji.

It's tough at first, but get rid of any books with romaji in them.

[omae mona]

Have you ever met a Japanese student who studied English using katakana notes?

Have you ever met a Japanese student who didn't use katakana to study English? I thought they all did.

Katakana-think is responsible for more than just pronunciation problems. I think it's the cause of a poster I saw in a Haagen-Dazs store years back, advertising their "Corn Sundae" (written in English). As believable as it was (TIJ, after all), they actually were trying to sell a Cone Sundae.

Anyway, I agree with FG Lurker. Same concept applies to learning Japanese. Nix the romaji!

[FG Lurker]

Have you ever met a Japanese student who studied English using katakana notes?

Have you ever met a Japanese student who didn't use katakana to study English? I thought they all did.

Too true!

Katakana-think is responsible for more than just pronunciation problems. I think it's the cause of a poster I saw in a Haagen-Dazs store years back, advertising their "Corn Sundae" (written in English). As believable as it was (TIJ, after all), they actually were trying to sell a Cone Sundae.

This is pretty interesting actually... Try asking a bunch of Japanese people what ice cream cones are made from. Quite a few will answer "corn"!

[Samurai_Jerk]

Pencilslave, can't your Japanese teacher help you or are you self studying?

[guriguri247365]

pencilslave, if youre teacher has you using books that only deal with romaji, then loose that teacher. Youre only hindering your own progress.

Agree with everybody else. I also went through and learned how the broadcasting club works on pronunciation too... example:

usually its ka,ki, ku,ke, ko

but, they practice as, ka, ki,ku,ke,ke,ko,ka,ko

while its not a long word like you initially asked, learning basic pronunciation is just as important. You can do that arrangement for a,ka,sa,ta,na,ha,ma,ra. I also notice that many foreingers have lots of problems saying rya, ryu, ryo words.

[GomiGirl]

[Adhesive]

For tongue twisters I would suggest breaking the word up into smaller fragments. For example, kyoowachottoatsuidesune is a phrase that is just as long as Arukitsuzukemashita, but I'm sure you have absolutely no problem saying it smoothly. Think of Arukitsuzukemashita as aruki, tsuzuke, and mashita. Aruki and mashita should already be no problem for you, so practice tsuzuke alone until it becomes automatic.

Good luck.

[maraboutslim]

(So Shibuya is Shibuya and NOT Shibuya like most westerners say and bugs the hell out of me)

That one isn't too bad (and for what it's worth, I hear it as shibuya, no emphasis anywhere). The one that really bothers me is "toe key oh". Everytime I hear some reporter or something say that on their news cast I think to myself, "how much can they know about japan when they can't even say tokyo, right?"

Studying Japanese using romaji will do the *same thing* to your Japanese as studying English with katakana does. The biggest difference is that Japanese people will never figure out what you want to say. Honestly, they will think you are speaking a different language.

Let's not exagerrate too much. Sure, the best would be to drop romaji as soon as you can but it is possible to speak japanese well even if you studied using romaji. I hardly ever studied with japanese only books and my pronunciation is pretty decent and no one has to figure out what I'm saying. Some people just have the ability to mimic sounds they hear and some people don't. Just like some people can sing and some can't, and some can learn music by ear and some can't, etc.

[FG Lurker]

Studying Japanese using romaji will do the *same thing* to your Japanese as studying English with katakana does. The biggest difference is that Japanese people will never figure out what you want to say. Honestly, they will think you are speaking a different language.

Let's not exagerrate too much. Sure, the best would be to drop romaji as soon as you can but it is possible to speak japanese well even if you studied using romaji. I hardly ever studied with japanese only books and my pronunciation is pretty decent and no one has to figure out what I'm saying. Some people just have the ability to mimic sounds they hear and some people don't. Just like some people can sing and some can't, and some can learn music by ear and some can't, etc.

It's not an exaggeration at all.

If you are living in Japan and learning Japanese while immersed in it, you might get by with romaji. I still think it will fuck up your speech though and generally make study more difficult. Further, being able to read makes life in Japan a helluva lot easier and also opens up far more job opportunities.

Anyway, Pencilslave isn't in Japan, he's in Alabama. I doubt he hears much Japanese at all, far less all day every day, day in day out.

[Lifer]

Since nobody commented on it,

Remember every kana in Japanese is like a beat in music so double vowels are just two beats of the same note (2 quarter notes make a half note). Other than that, it's like Adhesive said, mentally break the long words into their respective parts and they become a lot easier to say.

(Try Japanese toungue twisters as a fun way to improve speed.)

[FG Lurker]

Since nobody commented on it,

...actually if you read the very first reply to this thread....

[Lifer]

I did, I posted in regard to double vowels, not consonents.

My bad - shoulda said LONG vowels

[FG Lurker]

I did, I posted in regard to double vowels, not consonents.

My bad - shoulda said LONG vowels

Sorry bout that. Guess I should've read more closely!

[Pencilslave]

Pencilslave, can't your Japanese teacher help you or are you self studying?

I'm self studying.

[Pencilslave]

Since nobody commented on it,

Remember every kana in Japanese is like a beat in music so double vowels are just two beats of the same note (2 quarter notes make a half note). Other than that, it's like Adhesive said, mentally break the long words into their respective parts and they become a lot easier to say.

(Try Japanese toungue twisters as a fun way to improve speed.)

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I already may know one. I think it's:
Basu,basu, gasu, gasu, basu, basu, gasu,gasu,basu, gasu,gasu,haku,bakuhaku BOOM!

One other thought: I don't know what the heck it is, but sometimes when I seem to be pronouncing the words correctly, my voice seems to lower almost down to a bass.( I'm a baritone.) Anyone else find that their voice rises or lowers when they speak Japanese?

[Socratesabroad]

[Socratesabroad]

[maraboutslim]

Japanese seldom use romaji themselves except when dealing with foreigners.

Used to be true, but not in today's world where many Japanese use romaji to type Japanese on their computers (even my 60-something mother in law chooses to type this way and it's not from a familiarization with the roman alphabet either - she doesn't speak english at all so doesn't use it for anything other than romanized japanese).

If you guys are in Alabama, you're screwed regardless. Gotta learn Japanese in Japan.

[james]

[FG Lurker]

[Samurai_Jerk]

Pencilslave, can't your Japanese teacher help you or are you self studying?

I'm self studying.

There's your biggest problem. When it comes to learning pronunciation, self study is not good. Even if you get great CDs and think you are saying it exactly like the CD you probably aren't. You need a native speaker (or a very good non native speaker) to help you and correct you. Are you close to a college or a community college? There are probably some Japanese ESL students there. Offer to do a language exchange or buy them dinner or something in exchange for pronunciation help once a week. It'll make a BIG difference.

BTW, I agree that romaji is a waste of time especially since there is an easy to learn alternative: kana. It's not like Chinese where you pretty much have to start with pinyin since you probably aren't going to memorize thousands of characters before studying anything else. I think the first thing any Japanese language student should learn is hiragana since you can do so in a few days.

[ketchupkatsu]

If you guys are in Alabama, you're screwed regardless. Gotta learn Japanese in Japan.

Its not really true. If you have a native speaker to speak to, you can learn Japanese almost anywhere.

I learned Japanese from my mom in Hawaii. And I keep up my conversational skills with Japanese nationals living in or visiting Hawaii.

It is true that when I am in Japan I do get lost with the local slang, but usually I can figure out the meaning after a short while.

[maraboutslim]

[Charles]

[maraboutslim]

Yes, some do use a kana keyboard. I haven't done any research to know what percentage type using kana keyboard and which ignore those characters and type via a romaji like entering system. How about you guys working at Japanese compaines? Which do your coworkers seem to use most? (i personally don't know a single japanese who types in kana but my sample is limited these days).

[FG Lurker]

Yes, some do use a kana keyboard. I haven't done any research to know what percentage type using kana keyboard and which ignore those characters and type via a romaji like entering system. How about you guys working at Japanese compaines? Which do your coworkers seem to use most? (i personally don't know a single japanese who types in kana but my sample is limited these days).

In 10 years in Japan and about 8 years in the IT industry here, I have not seen a single person who uses direct kana input. I'm sure they exist, but they certainly are not common.

About the roman letter input, yes, certainly "chi" (etc) works, but most people use the shorter forms for input. This results in some very difficult to read Romaji if they do need to enter it for some reason.

[Naniwan Kid]

One other thought: I don't know what the heck it is, but sometimes when I seem to be pronouncing the words correctly, my voice seems to lower almost down to a bass.( I'm a baritone.) Anyone else find that their voice rises or lowers when they speak Japanese?

Yes, I don't think it's that uncommon. My voice sounds much higher in Japanese, but I have a pretty low voice in English. I wonder why that is....