Japanese Pronunciation Observations

[NaughtyPichu]

Okay, I find this fascinating; We UTAU users like to think we can somewhat tell when Japanese is pronounced badly, so assuming we're right, we have ways of explaining how it's pronounced and certain conceptions we've created in our minds of how it's supposed to sound, and we "help each other out" when we hear a deviating accent by pointing out where it's off and even how to do it properly.

Whoooa, getting to the point, I think it's really cool how different people have different ways of explaining the way they have observed Japanese to sound, like the "r" sounds being similar to a "d" or an "l", or trying to explain how to keep the vowels pure(which seems tricky to Native English speakers due to many English vowels being anything but pure)...

So, what are YOUR observations on the pronunciation of Japanese? I know people who try hard to listen to the natives and study the way it sounds don't always pick up the same exact ideas, so I think it would be interesting to see how they differ, or maybe how they further augment one another? We might learn something, or see things in a different way than before with just our own personal ideas... cause I really think the more viewpoints you see something in the clearer the picture is >u<;

Yeah, I rambled... I'm no good at starting threads, but it would be interesting if people would share there ideas here~ I'll start with an example of sorts, a few of MY noticings:

I'm not sure how much "h"s are talked about when discussing Japanese, but I absolutely love their "h"s... I'm going to poorly attempt to explain how they seem to me... it's like, English "h"s flow out easily, but the "air" made in the back of the throat to pronounce japanese h stays more or less in the back of the throat, like it's trapped. Depending on the "accent", the "h" can sounds very light or harder in a sound I can only think to describe as similar to the "r" in French, and sometimes they are hard enough were they are like... rolling?(I dunno how else to explain that.)

Oh anothing thing I noticed--if you have any idea about Korean pronunciation--is that sometimes in Japanese the "o" will be pronounced, i guess, "pure" like the Korean "o", and sometimes it's pronounce like the korean sound romanized sometimes as "eo", which is sort of like the muscles in the back of your mouth are more... relaxed?

Ah! The "d"s and "t"s are like, soooo similar methinks~ Compared to English, in the Japanese t sound your tougue doesn't stick between both rows of teeth, but it's like your tongue presses like a suction cup against the top of your mouth(even with the tip of your tongue leaning towards your teeth a little)and quickly releases, the d is basically the same but the back of your tongue is slack(this all made no sense). It's similar with the g and the k, I really don't think I can explain this one well so all Imma say is that the are twins except the k goes "forward" and the "g" goes backward...

Yeaaah sorry for the massive confusion I probably just caused anyone who read that D'x

Anyway, please share observations of yours~ I know there are many ways people perceive these things, and also many deviations that even NATIVE Japanese speakers have with their accents. If anyone knows anything about specific regional accents that would be sweet info, too :D

 

[Olivia]

Something i noticed was the worse my UTAU sounds with engrish, the better I've done, accent wise. xD
I'm not saying this always works though.
Like, if your UTAU had all the vowels recorded wrong, it probably would have terrible engrish too
idk

I've noticed that o's are a lot less a like than people seem to think. They're not as simple as people make them out to be O:
Most of the time, I can tell an overseas bank from a native Japanese bank by the o pronunciations

Also, the pronunciation of n. It's not just like nnnnnnn.....
I've noticed it sounds a bit more like n and m combined. It's sort of weird. xD

Oh, also, the Japanese pronounce fu differently. Some pronounce it more like hu, and some add a little bit of an fff sound at the beginning. I don't remember which places pronounced it like what though D:

 

[meichan]

Well, my Japanese is best when I'm imitating one of those bad boys in an anime.

But I also roll my Rs like Kikujiro in Kikujiro no Natsu and only use 俺 . .. until I just get tired and start using the most feminine pronouns, while still using the manly accent.

The girl I was skype calling was all giggles last time I did it.

The biggest observation I've made is that V-Kei has the coolest accents xD Rolled Rs, mostly. Rolled Rs.

 

[shinami]

I confess that I imitate Korean UTAUs' hard consonants. Specifically Hwan, Yui, and Rana, though there's probably others like them. Whether it's a Korean accent or just how they say it, they have the most powerful but non-aspirated and awesome consonants to me. I try my best to copy their powerful Ts, Ks, TSs, Gs, etc. And I think it's fine for a Japanese bank because, althought it's a lot harder to find in JP banks, sometimes they do super strong consonants too.

The most frustrating thing I experience when trying to explain Japanese to someone is definetly the U. Like Olivia with O, U is my big signal of this person hasn't figured it out yet. What sucks is I can't explain it - we don't have a word in English I think that uses the Japanese U. It's a lot brighter than ours, and when people who start banks use that really dark, full "oo" sound I know it's wrong but I can't explain to them WHY.

that's probably because i used to fail at that hardcore, and since i've fixed it i dislike when people can't fix it because i did

 

[Olivia]

The most frustrating thing I experience when trying to explain Japanese to someone is definetly the U. Like Olivia with O, U is my big signal of this person hasn't figured it out yet. What sucks is I can't explain it - we don't have a word in English I think that uses the Japanese U. It's a lot brighter than ours, and when people who start banks use that really dark, full "oo" sound I know it's wrong but I can't explain to them WHY.

that's probably because i used to fail at that hardcore, and since i've fixed it i dislike when people can't fix it because i did

I didn't mention the U vowel? Omg i thought i did whatjkldjaklsjd

But anyways, I find a lot of people pronouncing U veerryyy strangely. Like, to where it sounds like O. :c That always confused me a lot.
However, my first UTAU had a pretty weird American accent so I guess I shouldn't be talking. xD

 

[Obakebaka]

When I was first learning how to say the Japanese R (8 years ago) I started by imitating one of my bullies from high school. He had a speech impediment that caused him to pronounce his Rs closer to Ls.
While I did this, I learned that if you read a word with an R in it and try to say it as L, your mouth still moves into position to say the R because you're so used to using that in that word. "Friend", "Fry", "Frost", "Arrest", "Harp", "Resting", "Tarot", "Carrot" are good words to try this with. I even put on a North American accent to make sure it worked for those, too. It's not 100% perfect but it's a stepping stone towards a more Japanese pronunciation. It gives you context on where to put your tongue.

When recording a test with Mr. Inck's voicer (My sister's fiance), he struggled a LOT trying to say "tsu". With Walter Souris' Voicer (my dad) it took a while but he picked it up a lot easier.

It's pretty funny, really, considering that "tsunami" is a japanese word that was borrowed into English and both these men have used that word with no problems.

Anyway, I got them to say "Suits" but with an "u" at the end so that they learned to pronounce su and tsu differently. It worked with my dad, but not so much with my "siffy" since he's dyslexic and has problems saying "turret" and "demon" without calling them "turrent" and "demond". I got him closer to it by telling him to record "chi" and "tsu" together instead but he's not recorded with me in a while so he's probably forgotten again.

 

[Umbreon126]

[retracted]

 

[Cdra]

I basically learned how to pronounce Japanese by learning about phonetics... part of what I know is from listening, and the other part is from learning what my mouth is supposed to be doing. I think at some point, I figured out the system of movements your mouth goes through to get a more-or-less Japanese pronunciation?

For instance, the standard Japanese [r] (though it has some variations, one of which is basically an English L) is a "tap" [r]. It's basically the same as the [r] sound in Spanish, and when you make it, your tongue taps the roof of your mouth. It's closest to the tapped [d] in a word like "matter", but that's not quite it either. The [ts] is not strictly a [t] stuck on an ; it's closer to a [t] than that. I cannot for the life of me describe how I make that sound though... I sort of push my tongue against the roof of my mouth instead of tapping it like you to for a [t]? The Japanese [f] is suspicious too; it's between [h] and [f], which is to say it's an [f] that's pronounced just on your lips rather than somewhat on your teeth. [sh] and [ch] are pronounced on your palette more or less... [j] is weird too, and I don't quite know how to describe how it's different. It's like your mouth is wider when you say it, and it's somewhere between [d] and [z]? And of course, [t], [k], and [p] are unaspirated (they're more like clicks).

The [o] is very pure, unlike the English [O] which is rather dipthong-like (it fades into a bit of an sound as it goes on); the dipthong [o] is one of the things that makes an American accent very striking in a Japanese bank. Our also tends to dipthongize (which I've only noticed from staring at Soledi's waveforms)... but the main thing about the Japanese is that it's pronounced a little bit further back in the mouth than the English one, and a little higher up, with the lips less pursed. It's between the vowel in "foot" and the vowel in "fool".

Of note, the Japanese [a] and [e] aren't quite the same as in English either. The [a] is further back in the mouth, and more pure-feeling? It might be described as the English "uh" sound with the mouth more open. It's more like the [a] part of "eye" (that is, ). The [e] is kind of the same, actually! It's more pure, like the [e] part of "lay" (that is, [A]). You should want to end a Japanese [e] with rather than with [h] (so less "eh" and more "ay" without the ). That's how I think of it.

To me, it's almost unbearable when banks have aspirated consonants, English [r]'s, and the English [o]. I dislike the , but I can get past it. I really love to hear banks with the right [ts], [f], [sh], [ch], and [j] sounds, but it doesn't bug me too much if they're wrong. It also is nice to hear the right [e] and [a], but a lot of people aren't aware of those so I can ignore them more... As long as the [e] isn't super like, "ehhh" sounding, that is.

Most any sound I didn't mention here is almost exactly the same between English and Japanese, or so I think.

 

[kimchi-tan]

I can usually tell if the pronunciation is native or not just by listening to the UTAU (although I have a harder time with CV UTAUs because the more robotic sound) and like the others said, their vowels.

I think controlling your accent helps if you speak other languages. I'm Chinese-Filipino and I mostly speak English, so controlling my vowels isn't that hard (unless I'm at home, letting my accent and grammar fly away XD)

 

[Kiyoteru]

I feel as though I'm not saying enough compared to some of those huge posts, ehehe!

But yeah, you guys have really managed to explain the stuff that I've been thinking about pronunciation. When it comes to the Japanese R, I explain it to (American) English speakers by saying that it's the sound in the middle of butter, little, metal, etc. And the Japanese U, I say that it's somewhere between (I'm using chezzie-speak here) o/U and 6.

When you're recording an UTAU, you want to record it the way you want it to sound when it's singing, so if you like to sing along to J-pop or anime songs then you can make your UTAU sound more like a Japanese singer, because a singer won't have the absolute perfect pronunciation of the language but it will make it sound more realistic. (Wow, that was a really long sentence)

When I think of Japanese pronunciation I tend to think of Dan, since he's been recording UTAU for so long that his pronunciation is pretty much spot on. To the point where his english UTAU have a Japanese accent, even though he himself is American. I can really hear it in the [e] because the Japanese [e] is kind of in between the (chezzie speak) [e] and

Bluh

 

[Toxi-kun]

When I say "tsu", I pretend i'm in the middle of the "s" sound in "su".
and for the "R's" I roll my "L's" a little. ^ ^"