Japanese Phonetics Episode 33—LIVE (Updated with native recordings!) (Patreon)

June 4, 2021 Update: In the previous version of this lesson, I talked about how the initial い in 行くか often gets partially dropped in rapid speech, and attributed this to devoicing. However, after doing additional research, I've come to the conclusion that this is more of a form of slurring / slang than devoicing, and thus removed this section from the lesson. To clarify, I no longer believe that devoicing occurs at the beginning of words, though word initial い certainly does sometimes dropped in the form of slurring or slang（食べていく？ or, 'Want to eat something before you go?' often becomes 食べてく？, for instance). In terms of pure devoicing, I believe the following to be the best way to describe things:

い and う are devoiced when between voiceless consonants, or when they are preceded by a voiceless consonant and followed by a pause (source below).

I have updated the lesson 33 follow-up to reflect the above revisions, and as part of this, removed a small section in which I said the つ in 失礼 may be partially be devoiced in very rapid speech.

Nihon Onsei Gakkai (1976:748) and Tanaka and Kubozono (1999:8) cited by Vance (2008:206—207). Japan Foundation (2009:52—57).

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

The thirty-third episode of Japanese Phonetics, now updated with native recordings, is live! In this lesson we look at the extremely important linguistic phenomenon known as devoicing. This concept was a game changer for me, and I hope it will be for you as well. Apologies for the delay—this lesson ended up being by far the longest so far at over twenty minutes, so production was a bit more time consuming than usual.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns with regards to this lesson, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support, and good luck with your Japanese studies!

Best from Beppu,

Dōgen