Phonetics and pronunciation in Japanese
Pronunciation in Japanese is not very difficult, but it has its own characteristics. Firstly, almost all syllables in Japanese are open (consonant + vowel). There are few closed syllables, and in Japanese they can only end with n. Secondly, the Japanese language does not have many sounds that are in Russian (“l”, “sh”, “y”), and vice versa, some sounds differ from those familiar to us.
Let's take a closer look at the pronunciation of vowels.
The first row of the Japanese syllabary consists of five vowels: a, i, u, e, o.
あ – similar to the stressed Russian “a”, but the Japanese “a” is less open
い – like Russian i. The consonant before it is always soft.
う– in transcription it is rendered as Russian “u”, but it looks like something in between Russian at And s. .
え – should be pronounced clearly, but less openly, Japanese え is more like “e” after hard consonants.
お–clearly, like the Russian stressed “o”
Japanese has long and short vowels. Long vowels are 2 times longer than short vowels. Long and short vowels must always be distinguished, since some words differ only in the length of the vowels. In transcription, the length of a vowel is indicated by a colon or a line above the letter.
In hiragana, longitude is indicated either by repeating the corresponding vowel or the vowel う after お (as in the word けんこう kenko: "health"), in katakana - by a horizontal bar after the vowel. The combination えい in some cases is read as a long “e” (for example, the word せんせい (sensei) can be pronounced as sensei or sensei:, and がくせい (gakusei) as gakusei or gakuse:).
"U" And " And" between voiceless consonants are reduced, that is, they are almost not pronounced. For example, the words すこし “a little” or そして “then” sound almost like “mow” and “suck.” Also, the reduction rule sometimes applies to the case if “I” or “U” are at the end of the word after a voiceless consonant, for example, the linking verb です is read as “des”, and the ending of the verb ます is read as “mas”.
Now let's talk about the pronunciation of consonants.
K in the series か, き, く, け, こ is similar to the Russian k.
In the syllables さ sa, す su, せ se, そ so, the first consonant is similar to the Russian “s”. The consonant in the syllable し si looks like a cross between the soft Russian s and shch.
In た ta, て te, と that - how T In russian language. In ち ti looks like a cross between t' and ch'. The ts in the syllable つ tsu is similar to the Russian “ts”.
In the syllables な na, に ni, ぬ well, ね ne, の but the consonant is similar to the Russian “n”.
X in the syllables は ha, へ he, ほ ho is pronounced aspirated and easy. In the syllable ひ hi is like a soft x. In the syllable ふ fu, the “f” is pronounced easily, with aspiration.
M is the first sound in the syllables ま ma, み mi, む mu, め me, も mo. Identical to Russian m.
In や i, ゆ yu, よ е the first consonant is th. These syllables are similar to the Russian letters i, yu, ё.
In the syllables ら ra, り ri, る ru, れ re, ろ ro, the consonant is less booming than our “r”, it is formed almost the same as in Russian, but with one blow of the tongue on the palate, which is why it becomes a kind of middle between r and l. Some peoples claim that there is no “r” in Japanese, but only “l”.
The consonant of the syllable わ wa resembles something between the Russians в and у (cf. English w).
The syllable を is pronounced like "o".
The consonant ん is read as "m" before m, b And P(かんぱい kampai - toast, しんぶん shimbun - newspaper), like a nasal sound before To And G - (けんか kenka "quarrel"), and as "n" in other cases.
Consonants in voiced rows are pronounced:
G in the series "ha" is similar to the Russian "g". When the syllables が ga, ぎgi, ぐ gu, げ ge, ご go are in the middle of a word, the “g” is pronounced with a nasal sound similar to the English ŋ (for example, in the word あげる ageru “to raise”).
In the syllables ざ za, づ, ず zu, ぜ ze, ぞ zo, when they are written at the beginning or middle of a word after n, pronounced “dz”. In other cases - as Russian z. In the syllables じ, ぢ, dzi is pronounced softly and with a lisping sound.
In だ yes, で de, ど do consonant = hard Russian “d”.
The first sound in the series ば ba, び bi, ぶ bu, べ be, ぼ bo is similar to the Russian “b”.
In the syllables ぱ pa, ぴ pi, ぷ pu, ぺ pe, ぽ po, the consonant is similar to the Russian “p”.
There are also doubled consonants in Japanese. They are indicated by a small つ before a syllable with a double consonant: けっか kekka, いったい ittai, いっぽん ippon, etc.
In conclusion, I would like to say that in general, mastering Japanese pronunciation is much easier for Russian-speaking people than, for example, for English speakers or speakers of other languages.
This is due to the fact that the Russian language includes almost all the sounds that are found in the Japanese language.
In order to improve your pronunciation, I advise you to listen to Japanese speech as much as possible and practice listening. Listen carefully and pay attention to the intonation and pronunciation and then proceed to practice - try to exactly repeat after the announcer, and then your pronunciation will noticeably improve after some time of regular practice.
P.S. For listening, for example, dialogues from the textbook Minna no Nihongo are good.
You can apply all the subtleties of Japanese phonetics in practice by completing.
Well, you need to write something non-Fukushima? And that's already indecent...
For those who do not want to read the article, but want to know the answer, I will tell it in advance. "S" is more correct.
http://www.susi.ru/SusiOrSushi.html (Reprint)
Vadim Smolensky
SUS I or SUSH I?
A rebuke to those with a lisp
Introduction
"Transliteration as a litmus test of patriotism"
It is quite possible that the problem we are talking about might not have arisen at all. It could - if the Tower of Babel was a little lower. But, apparently, our Creator was so angry that he not only invented different words and grammars when he mixed languages, but
in addition, it also produced dissimilar phonetic systems. So now we are struggling: how to move from one to the other? In particular, from Japanese to Russian. Moreover, in conditions when English transliteration of Japanese words dominates everywhere, a shining example which is the word " sushi".
Of course, it is necessary to conduct explanatory work among the population. We will deal with this below. But sometimes such work is not enough. You often come across an interesting phenomenon: people who know perfectly well how this or that Japanese word is written in Russian stubbornly pronounce it using " w" - "sushi", "sashimi", "Khonshu".
I thought for a long time about the reasons for this phenomenon and came to a trivial conclusion: our eternal groveling before Uncle Sam is to blame. Russian people trust the Latin script more than the Cyrillic alphabet. In Cyrillic they deceived him for too long and shamelessly. He is even inclined to believe that the deception continues.
For example, I am discussing political news with my office neighbor - let's call him Pavel Petrovich. He says:
Have you heard that their prime minister Hashimoto's stated yesterday?
Pavel Petrovich! Not Hashimoto's, A Hashimoto!
Why will you be here for me? Look there! - and shows me the Japan Times.
Well, it's in English. You see, in their phonetic...
I do not know anything. I say it as it is written.
In response, I show him the latest issue of Kommersant-Daily, where it is written correctly. He waves it off:
I have a solid organ, and you’re pushing me some shopkeepers’ newspaper...
And this is not a curiosity, this is the rule. Hiroshima And Tsushima instantly turn into Hiroshima And Tsushima, as soon as our compatriot sees their English spellings. At first, this metamorphosis is even accompanied by some surprise: look, it turns out that something is right - but we were saying it wrong all the way. The misunderstanding itself is quickly attributed to the home-grown nature of our Japanese scholars, who, of course, have never seen how Japanese words are “really” written.
I have observed Russian residents with very different political orientations. I have seen quite a few who are quite Slavophile-minded, talk about the conspiracy of world capital and stigmatize the Americans, who establish their own rules everywhere. But even the most naive patriots will still call sushi “sushi,” no matter how much you hint to them that such negligence only reveals their deep, carefully hidden servility to everything foreign.
But I'm not like that. I am a true patriot. Although it is completely devoid of geopolitical pathos. For me, let the Yankees expand to the east and establish Masonic lodges. Let them send red-haired Chubais to us. Let our youth be stupefied until they are blue in the face with rock, chewing gum and aerobics. I don't care about all this.
But I won’t give them my native alphabet to mock. Let them not even dream. Cyril and Methodius! How can you hear? Sleep well guys, I'm on guard. I will not give up a single letter to the enemy - and over the heads of the renegades who trampled the most precious thing we have, through the herd of indifferent people who do not care about high ideals, I will scream until I become hoarse, I will appeal to all the lost souls who have not yet lost their conscience:
Japanese words should not contain the letter "SHA"!!!
Now let’s take a look at the scientific basis for all of the above.
The essence of the problem
It would seem that it would be easier to choose the sound native language, similar in sound. The result is an action similar to mathematical rounding. But the trouble is that you can round in different directions. It's supposed to be the closest one - but you won't always understand where it is, it's the closest one. Sometimes it’s not visible to the eye, or rather, it’s not audible to the ear. Therefore, first they let in linguists with their trained ears, and they say with authority: this sound of theirs, in our opinion, should be pronounced in such and such a way.
However, a linguist is not always at hand. And you don’t always hear a word with your ears - sometimes you only see it on paper. And the worst thing is when you see it written in some third language. So it turns out: a Russian person sees English word "sushi" - and how will he then write or pronounce it in Russian? It is known as - " sushi". And this is no good.
Let's explain all the ins and outs. It's not easy, but what to do...
Phonetic jungle.
So, we have a Japanese syllable (recorded in the hiragana syllabary). Consider the following English and Russian transliterations: " si", "shi", "si" And " shi"They differ in the sound of the consonant - its softness and lisp. Let's arrange them in order of increasing softness:
shi - si - shi - - si
And now in order of decreasing lisp:
shi - shi - - si - si
On both scales, the Japanese sound is located between the Russian " si"and English" shi". Therefore, the letter combination " shi", and as a Russian - " si". At the same time, Russian transliteration turned out to be even closer to the original than English, especially on the second scale. Indirect evidence of this is the fact that the state system of Latin transliteration adopted in Japan (in contrast to the so-called “Hepburnian” adopted in English-speaking countries), uses the syllable " si". As for " shi", That
the sound of this Russian syllable has very little in common with Japanese pronunciation. To the point that a Japanese person may simply not understand a word spoken through solid Russian" w". This pronunciation sounds like ugly exaggerated English
accent.
Other letter combinations
"SHI" - this is the most blatant of all artisanal transliterations. That is why we pay so much attention to this syllable here. There are, however, other syllables that cause difficulties. Below they are tabulated for clarity - along with their correct Russian spellings.
| shi - si | ji - ji | chi - ti | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sha-sya | ja - jia | za - dza | cha - cha | ya - I | kya - kya |
| shu - syu | ju - ju | zu - dzu | chu - tu | yu - yu | kyu - kyu |
| sho - se | jo - jo | zo - dzo | cho - te | yo - ё | kyo - kyo |
Notes and additions:
The rightmost column is a summary: in place " k"there may be another consonant. The main thing here is that the combination" y" with a vowel in Russian is expressed with one letter, not two ("Tokyo" and "Kyoto" are ingrained exceptions).
Match between " chi" And " you"does not seem so clear; transliteration option" chi"has, perhaps, no less right to exist and is sometimes found among quite professional translators. But it is considered the standard" you". Therefore, for example, in a city marked on all Russian maps as “Hitachi”, there is a company known to everyone as “Hitachi”.
Letter " e"in English transliteration is rendered in Russian as " uh"However, sometimes Russian is used" e" - to "soften" the word for the eye (compare, for example, "karate" and "karate"). This substitution usually does not affect the pronunciation, but from a purist's point of view it is unacceptable.
Letter combinations " nm", "nb" And " n.p."transferred as" mm", "mb" And " mp"Accordingly, they sound exactly like this in Japanese. By the way, they are often written in Latin as " mm", "mb" And " mp" (Hepburn standard).
Letter " i", being encountered after a vowel (" ai", "ui" etc.) is most often displayed as " th"(and-short). Exceptions are rare.
Combinations " ou" And " uu" means long syllables, as opposed to short ones. In Russian writing, you should simply omit the second one " u". In educational and linguistic literature, special symbols are used - a colon or a line over a vowel.
Syllable " tsu"it is more logical to convey in a syllable" tsu" rather than copy English spelling - "tsu". Still, thirty-three letters are not twenty-six.
Conversational Japanese is not as difficult as it might first seem. Especially if you allow yourself to make mistakes. And it’s certainly much simpler than Chinese with its tonal pronunciation. The Japanese have a palette of sounds that is more or less understandable to Westerners; they are not difficult to pronounce and recognize. After a couple of lessons, you can already ask simple questions, build sentences and so on.
But written Japanese is something different.
* * *
The Japanese have three separate writing systems. Kanji are Chinese characters that represent whole words. These icons are mostly very intricate, although sometimes simple ones are found.
In addition, there are two phonetic systems, where each icon represents a whole syllable. Hiragana - squiggles and twists. This is the very first written language that the Japanese learned. All kanji can be written using hiragana. With its help, children learn to read. The inscriptions are purely in hiragana only where even the most beginners should be able to read. For example the name railway stations often duplicated in hiragana.
In normal writing, the root of a word can be represented by a kanji character, and various suffixes can be added using hiragana.
For foreign words The Japanese have separate icons - katakana. They practically duplicate hiragana in function, but differ in a more “angular” writing.
With a little practice, you can learn to distinguish hiragana from katakana and from kanji.
There is also "romaji" - official system by writing Japanese words in Latin. After World War II, the Japanese government almost entirely switched to the Hepburn system for these purposes. She prefers hissing sounds (daiginjo, Shibuya) instead of the Cyrillic alphabet used to write Japanese words. It is to Polivanov that we owe the words, Shibuya, and, God forgive me,.
Japanese has a lot of borrowed words. They used to come from German language, now from English. For example, beer will be biru (from beer), coffee - kohi, sandwich - sandoichi.
You can order the drink with ice and add "rocca". Actually it means "six", but the Japanese find it similar to "on the rocks" in English.
It's no secret that the Japanese confuse many of our familiar sounds. For example, “R” and “L” - they just have something in the middle in their language. The same thing happens with "B" and "B", and other vowel pairs. (That’s why some people here pronounce my name “Ryoba.”) It’s hard for a Westerner to imagine how two such different sounds can be confused, although children often have problems with this.
In such cases, I always explain - think about how we pronounce the word "Moscow", for example. In our Russian speech it is very easy to confuse the letters “O” and “A”, although they are so different.
sasha_odessit shared with me an interesting remark about this - for the Japanese, confusing two vowel sounds is as unthinkable as for us confusing two consonants. In unstressed syllables, we do not make much distinction between vowel sounds. For example, if we imagine that the same Moscow would be written Meskva, Miskva or Muskva - with the emphasis on the same second syllable, the difference in pronunciation in Russian would be minimal (with the possible exception of a strongly pronounced Moscow accent).
But this difference in Japanese is very important, and can lead to a complete change in the meaning of the word, so that the Japanese clearly pronounce and hear all the vowels in the word.
They say that this is why lisping consonants are used in Polivanov’s system, since they better convey the correct sound of subsequent vowels. For example, in the word “sushi”, read in Russian, the letter “i” after “sh” sounds like “y”, which is incorrect from a Japanese point of view. It would be possible to put the letter "sch" instead of "sh", but this would "double" its pronunciation. So Polivanov, when composing his transliteration, decided to slightly distort the consonants that are not so important to the Japanese ear, and at their expense convey the correct sound of the more important vowels. Well, to us the result seems ridiculous in places.
Japanese has many different forms of number words. For example, in English, two of anything will be “two”. And in Russian there can be “two” or “two” - the form depends on gender. Next come the declensions: two, two, etc., this is also a kind of form.
So in Japanese, number words depend on the type of objects! For example, one will be “hitotsu”, but if we are talking about a person, then it will be “hitori”. Separate forms of the word exist for thin objects, and others for long ones. Moreover, if the object is both long and thin at the same time, then there are established traditions of what calculative words to apply to it.
When flour first appeared in Japan, it was first called "Meriken-ko" - American powder. (Many American things were called “Merkien”; this is how the Japanese heard the word “American”.)
Answer from Unixaix CATIA[guru]
Japanese phonetics is in many ways similar to Russian: in the Japanese language, vowels that soften a consonant are also widespread (and, ya, ё, yu - they, by the way, are also written in separate letters, unlike many other languages), a small total number of vowels ( 8, and in Russian 10), a small number of consonant sounds (most of them coincide with Russian), so it’s easier to say how Japanese phonetics differs from Russian than to tell everything as if you didn’t know Russian.
The Japanese language has adopted a syllabary system, i.e. after a consonant there is always a vowel, there are only two exceptions - n (an independent syllable from one consonant) and doubling (for example kka, which is only written in Russian transcription with two letters, but is used in Japanese alphabets special symbol indicating doubling.) .
The Japanese language does not have the following Russian sounds: consonants - v, zh, l, f, ch, c, sh, shch; vowels - e, s.
In the Japanese language there is no Russian force stress, all syllables are pronounced evenly and equally clearly (approximately like stressed syllables in Russian), but at the same time there is a special Japanese tonic stress, certain syllables are pronounced in a tone higher than others. This emphasis is very important; incorrect emphasis can distort the meaning of the phrase.
But some syllables are reduced, for example, if we take the already studied connective です desu, then in fact, due to the reduction, it is pronounced almost like des, and past form of this connective でした deshita is pronounced almost like deshta. Nevertheless, pronouncing a word without reduction does not change the meaning of what was said, and in some Japanese regions it is customary to pronounce it this way.
The syllable wa recorded in the transcription is pronounced approximately like ua (very short u) or like English. wa. The syllables starting with r recorded in the transcription are pronounced in Japanese as a cross between the Russian r and l. You don't need to touch your lower lip with your teeth to make the "f" sound in Japanese. To say this one, imagine that you are blowing out a candle. By the way, in Japanese the letter f is found only in the syllable fu, since this syllable is in the row of the letter x, that is, the syllable hu is pronounced like fu. The pronunciation of some consonants changes if they are followed by softening vowels: t becomes an intermediate sound between t and ch; dz - in the sound j, but with softening (as for example sometimes in Russian in the word yeast); s - in the sound between s and sch. The syllable tu is pronounced as tsu, the syllable du is pronounced as dzu (voiced tsu). The vowel u is intermediate between u and ы.
Answer from 2 answers[guru]
Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: What sounds are not in the Japanese language?
Answer from Vladimir Alekseev[guru]
Yes, I know 3 tokavs of Russian))) And what can we say about Japanese)))))) I have no idea!!! I want to find out myself)))
Answer from Yoovushk@[guru]
Russians
Answer from Olga Voloshina[guru]
The fact is that, due to the peculiarities of their language, the Japanese do not distinguish between some sounds that exist in other languages, but are absent in Japanese. For example, for them the combinations with: “b-v”, “ji-ji”, “shi-si”, “r-l”, “h-f”, etc. sound the same. Therefore, a special system was developed in katakana instructions on when a sound is considered “x” and when “f”. Different spellings were established for groups of consonants “w” - “v”, etc.
In hiragana, such a system simply does not exist, because it is not needed to write Japanese words. In principle, you can find some of the above syllables (group “f”, “v”, etc.) written in hiragana according to the rules of katakana, but this is extremely illiterate. No Japanese would ever do that.
Answer from ? ?°???????µ?????°?? ***
[master]
There are no Russian sounds in Japanese:
consonants - v, zh, l, f, h, c, w, sch;
vowels - e, s.
And also in Japanese there is no Russian forceful stress on sounds.
Answer from YLGA[guru]
Sound "l"
Answer from Alexandra Trifonova[guru]
And I don't know anything
Answer from Misha Arsenyev[guru]
I heard this interview. There, instead of “send,” he said something indecent.
They also don’t have sibilants, so the Japanese, who speak Russian poorly, say “s” instead of “sh” (at least that’s how the Japanese accent is portrayed in movies and jokes).
Answer from Eduard F. Sabirov[guru]
I remember they have a problem with the letter L... (I once heard an interview with a Japanese correspondent on this very topic, back in the 90s...)
Answer from Grieg's cat.[guru]
You definitely won’t get it from a Japanese - I LOVE you!
Answer from ElkySniper[guru]
The soft sign is definitely missing, and I don’t know what sounds.
Answer from S.V.[guru]
damn, everyone here is so smart...
Sorry, friend, but I was not interested in this and still am not interested
