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Japanese Phonetics Episode 35—LIVE (Updated with native recordings!) (Patreon)

Published:
2018-01-31 05:27:56
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2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good afternoon Patrons! The thirty-fifth episode of Japanese Phonetics is live, now updated with native recordings! In this episode we talk about the IPA vowel chart, and the five Japanese vowels. Directly below are the two additional resources I mention towards the end of the video.

・Japanese Pod 101 Video
・UBC Video

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

Files

Previews only

Japanese Phonetics #35: Introduction to Vowels

The thirty-fifth episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this episode, we look at the IPA Vowel Chart, and the five Japanese vowels. In the next episode we will begin to look at pronunciation, specifically devoicing rules. If you have any questions leave a comment below, and thank you all for your continued support! Japanese Pod 101 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPJIwff3w0I UBC Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t64Ie8HBsdo Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Sophia Herron

Thank you so much for this! I was noticing having a lot of trouble moving between ん and が sounds to other sounds, and I just realized I'd been trying to approximate the flatness I was hearing in Japanese vowels by nasalizing them, (my first second language is French) which made it really hard to move smoothly between anything with a glottal stop, or get the vowel back in the right position after nasalizing the ん. Moving the vowels into my mouth and raising the register has made an immediate difference in both ease and natural-ness, and it's way easier to track pitch accent without the secondary resonance!

Dogen
>>10059301

Not a problem sophie! Glad to hear that this one tip made such a big difference for you! I actually experience a somewhat similar phenomenon—I found that I had much more control over my pitch when I stopped trying to speak with throaty, American English vocal placement. Good luck with you future studies! Appreciate the support!

Sashin Exists

What does "little to no resonance" mean again? I'm going to rewatch this and will probably delete this comment if I missed something

Dogen
>>137404515

Hi, Sashin. JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. Try watching the wrap-up portion of the video (starting here: https://youtu.be/8LRKTSPV4KU?t=445). At around 7:45 Dōgen gives an example contrasting an English "a" sound and the Japanese vowels. You can hear the resonance here—the English "a" sounds like it's more in his chest with more vibration, while the Japanese あ is more in his throat and head, if that makes sense. Hope this helps!

John Anderson

Exciting video! Appreciating the more refined and accurate IPA transcript of Japanese used in the video--I am so curious--where might one find a more complete body of them for the language? It may be that I have to surf through various references, but that would be fine, too. Thanks for the content. It's been a thrill.

Tobi

I recently started watching (or rather binge watching) your videos, and considering they've been released quite some time ago, i don't know if you'll see my comment. Either way, thank you for making this series! Now for my question: on Wikipedia, the vowel chart uses the IPA symbol ä, but whenever i use Wiktionary to see the IPA transcription of words, especially Japanese, they use a̠. I'm guessing the Wikipedia one is more accurate (?). Have you used Wiktionary before? もう一度、ありがとうございます。

Dogen
>>31502069

Hi Tobi, for more general descriptions either of those is fine, as the Japanese あ is a low central vowel, but if you'd like to be as precise as possible, I personally prefer Vance's 2008 description [ɑ̟] which puts it just a bit further back in the mouth, but still ahead of the English [ɑ]. Does this answer your question? Cheers!

Jennifer He

Hi Dogen - you talked about jaw placement in your last video as well as this one. I am not sure if I am overthinking it, but for the vowel i where you mentioned the jaw should be a bit closed, should I think about very very lightly touching the back of my molars together when pronoucing the vowel?

Dogen
>>37712097

Hi Jennifer—I've never seen anything about touching the molars together, so it's probably best not to close your mouth that far for 'closed vowels'. Thanks!

Matt

Hi Dogen, thanks for the fantastically useful video. Could you explain a little bit more about "resonance"? I am not sure how much it is related to "voicing" or "reverberation". I am a native Chinese (Cantonese) speaker, which has relatively little vibration on the throat compared to English. I am still gauging where to put Japanese in general on this spectrum of resonance. Thanks!

Dogen
>>38014833

Hi Matt. This is a little hard to explain, but perhaps the best way to think of it is that it's better to speak from your mouth than to speak from your chest. Does that make sense to you? I'm not familiar with Chinese so it's hard for me to make any comparisons.

julien

I've never been taught this, but it makes a lot of sense, thank you! I think this is because my teacher was a native Japanese speaker for whom many of the French vowels are allophones, so she couldn't really tell the difference. I'm a native French speaker. I think い is easy for me to pronounce. う is not too difficult either, as long as I remember to keep the lips neutral. I came across this information a few months ago when learning about the IPA chart, where they illustrated roundness with /i/ /y/ as well as "Japanese u". I was always taught /ɯ/ was between /u/ and /y/, which is wrong! At least I started correcting myself when I found that out. え is causing me some troubles, as I've always said it in two different ways, either with French /e/ in most cases or French /ɛ/ (in です or before a ん). Is there any source noting a difference or should I try to have the same sound in both situations? In any case, paying close attention to native recordings, I now see that I should lower my /e/ a bit. あ is going to be hard to produce properly, because my variety of French does not distinguish between /a/ and /ɑ/, but I noticed in the IPA that we have /ɑ̃/ as in "France", so training to un-nasalize it, then producing a sound in the middle should work. When listening to French speakers, I think I noticed a tendency to say /ɑ̃/ when the sound is followed by a ん, such as in フランス. The あ sounds nasalized, but I think this is because I expect it in that word in French. I tried to record myself with and without it, and I hear it in both, but /an/ sounds more Japanese than /ɑ̃n/. I noticed that お is right in between /o/ and /ɔ/ which we have in French, but also that it's right at the same position as /ɔ̃/ (as in "on", "pont", "bon"), so un-nasalizing it and rounding it a bit might be more effective for me than trying something in between existing vowels. Your video made me very conscious that I am mispronouncing a lot of English vowels too ^^

Dogen
>>38959647

My pleasure! In one of the above comments in this post I actually talk with Toberu, a French speaker, a bit about this topic. Do you mind first checking the post to see if it answers your questions? Just scroll up a bit and you should see the post (I'm not a French speaker so I think his comments would probably help more than mine)! Please also note that I'm not a Japanese native speaker, so while the information in this video is all correct as far as I know, I would highly suggest checking out the Japanesepod101 video linked above as well, as there may be some very, very small differences between my speech and that of a native. Incidentally, I talk about え a bit more in the next several lessons so hopefully you're able to learn from that as well! Hopefully that answers your questions for now!

ʏūʀᴇɪ ᴀᴋᴜᴍᴀ

Hi dogen sensei. I have a question. Lately I've been focusing on my Japanese pronunciation and pitch accent. I do shadowing, listening, record myself and I ask native speakers to correct me ( they do most of the time ) . The thing is sometimes I know the pitch accent but I can't say it exactly correct unless I use pitch accent identifier app which is frustrating for me. What should I do about this ? My second question, is when I did record myself, a Japanese guy told me that I should say the pitch accent for every word. I was trying to emphasize some words in the text I was reading. Does that mean I should say every word with it's pitch accent ? And while listening I should focus on the pitch accent for every word ? One more question, in some sentences I noticed that the pitch changes in no particular order from word to word. I mean it's not following exactly the rule of the pitch stays up until the last downstep? How can I predict this while talking ? Will listening alone works? It's not like I'm going to memorize every sentence pattern . 😓 I'm sorry if I'm asking too much. But, I really do need guidance and help.

Dogen
>>53957744

Hi Yurei. There are a lot of questions here, but I'll try to answer them. If you're unable to mimic the pitch-accent unless using an app, then you may still be in the earlier stages of pitch-accent studies. That is to say, it sounds to me like you may not be able to mimic it just yet because you haven't fully internalized each pattern so to speak. Once this happens, then you should be able to more or less say any word with the correct pitch-accent pattern, provided you know what the pattern of the word is. I'm not sure about the circumstance in which a Japanese guy told you this, but in more formal settings, such as in a Japanese classroom when you're trying to speak in a 'textbook manner' so to speak, then carefully pronouncing each word with the correct pitch-accent is OK. I don't typically recommend that people try to do this in normal conversation, however, as it can make your speech a bit robotic, and if you're in the early stages of learning pitch-accent it may result in adding too much stress to various parts of your utterances as well. For listening I don't think you should try to focus on the accent of every word, as this can be a bit overwhelming. It's best to try and listen for a rule, pattern, or word that you've memorized, rather than every single individual word. The reason for this, which should also answer your next question, is that intonation (a speakers emotions and intentions) can sometimes override pitch-accent rules. That is to say, pitch-accent rules only exist in a vacuum, and they don't take into-account certain things, such as whether a speaker is really angry, or trying to emphasize a specific part of a sentence. So "pitch stays high until a downstep occurs" is a definite rule in pitch-accent but if a speaker is speaking in a highly emotional or deliberate manner, than there may still be inflections in pitch. For example, if a speaker is asking a question, then the pitch of a word may change slightly, as people typically raise the pitch at the end of words when they are asking. The only way to accurately mimic and predict all of the above information, in my opinion, is to dedicate yourself to Japanese for the long-run. Developing natural pitch-accent isn't something most speakers can do in the short term—it often takes years of native input and active listening. Based on your questions, it sounds like you may be a bit overwhelmed with all of the information in the series thus far, and are thus a bit lost. My number one piece of advice to you now would be to take a one month break from actively studying pitch-accent and pronunciation, but to continue to listen to as much Japanese as possible. By giving yourself a bit of time to relax, but while also continuing to listen a lot of native Japanese everyday, you should start to unconsciously pick up on may of the things I talk about in this post, such as how a speakers emotion's and intentions can sometimes override pitch-accent, as well as the the four primary pitch-accent patterns. Again, I would suggest taking a break from active studies, but to continue to listen to Japanese media in a more relaxed manner during this time. After a month or so, when you come back and start doing things in a more active manner, I imagine you'll be in a better place. Hope that this helps, cheers!

Gerrit

Hi Dogen, I have a question concerning あ. While you've explained in this video that it should be more central than the American one, I can still her quite a substantial difference between the native recording and your pronounciation of the vowel. I'm a German native, and for me the Japanese native pronounciation is pretty close to the German "a" pronounciation, while yours is considerably different. I've especially noticed this if you speak longer words. I'm wondering if this is a differene between male and female speakers or just that your pronounciation is a bit off, or do I just not hear this correctly? :D

Dogen
>>97727526

Hi, Gerrit. This is probably an issue with my pronunciation, which is why I’ve opted to go back and put native recordings in the series. I definitely had issues with this sound in my older comedic lessons and in the Patreon series as well. I would encourage you to go to Forvo and search for あ, find a male speaker, and then see what you find. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe the German vowels are closer to the Japanese vowels than the American vowels. Hope this helps! Dōgen

Nicolas Guillemot

I'm gonna have to rewatch this a few times to be happy with my pronunciation. Thanks for the lesson! By the way, allow me to mention "fortnightly" as an alternative to the notedly ambiguous "biweekly" :P Another suggestion: I think this video might be even more helpful if each vowel had some example words with it. In particular, maybe a word where the vowel has a high pitch and a low pitch. I'm having just a bit of trouble imagining how to incorporate your single sounds into words I know.

Dogen
>>9818879

Thanks for the feedback Nicolas. Will definitely keep your insights in mind for future vids! ^^ I added the every-other week tag to avoid confusion—do you think things are still ambiguous? Cheers!

Randy Fiato

Great video. Incidentally, I also speak Spanish, which, aside from u/う, usually has the other 4 pure vowels transcribed into IPA the same as in Japanese. I've never seen anything with respect to Spanish articulatory setting, but the focus on the mechanics of pure vowel production between this video and the last one has made me realize why I had been diphthongizing Spanish o at the end of phrases for years because -- by unconscious analogy with English -- I kept wanting to round my lips when I reached a speech cadence with an "o" sound, even though I had been able to able to snuff out that problem mid-sentence. (I knew that I was sounding unnatural to native speakers there but couldn't figure out how to fix the problem.) By contrast, I've noticed while speaking Japanese that I've been much less prone to falling into this trap due to having to pay attention to mora timing and pitch accent (especially avoiding a drop in pitch with 平板 words) -- it seems harder to accidentally change lip position with that mindset.

sherrycous

Informative as usual. One thing I noticed about myself is that I have a tendency of stretching vowel sounds especially "u" and sometimes add u sound when there is none , e.g. so my ゆ will sound like ゆう. One of my Japanese teacher told me that I am the only Chinese he noticed who has this problem. I always wonder if I got my problem from speaking English too much. XD Yeah, I blame English for all my problems.

Toberu

Great vid, as usual! What you said about the Japanese 「え」 being slightly different from the English "e" in "mess" is very true, with one exception (unless I've been mishearing this whole time): when it's followed by 「ん」. You might notice that the 「え」 in 「べんり」 sounds a bit more open than the one found in 「たべる」 for instance. This "closed e" vs. "open e" dichotomy doesn't exist in English, but it's a very real distinction in French, where "é" (e accent aigu), for all intents and purposes, sounds identical to the regular Japanese 「え」, and "è" and "ê" (e accent grave and e accent circonflexe) sound like the 「え」 in 「べんり」. The difference is not huge, but it's noticeable. Here's an example from 2:46 to 4:05: <a href="https://youtu.be/9Lej50KeYtU?t=166" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/9Lej50KeYtU?t=166</a> Also, great to hear you found an actual paper on vocal placement (though the author doesn't call it that)!

Dogen
>>9821669

Thanks Randy. Interesting insights! The resources that I used to create this video indicated that while the vowels in Japanese are actually much closer to Spanish than they are in English, they're still a bit different. Vance often listed the vowels in Japanese as in between certain English and Japanese vowels. That said I've also seen some linguists who note them as identical, which you mentioned. Glad to hear you were able to use the information in this video to improve your Spanish as well! ^^ Appreciate the support.

Dogen
>>9830796

Hi Sherry. I've actually had a few people tell me similar anecdotes recently, and I do believe that the problem is related to the high amount of resonance used in English. I had to train myself for a bit as well. It helps if you can put your own recordings side by side with native speech; in my experience this exaggerated the issue and made things more noticeable. Hope this helps!

Dogen
>>9831852

Hey Bertrand. Thanks for the feedback. I actually thought you would comment on 「え」, as the vowel is much closer to it's French sibling, which you noted. I've never noticed the difference in that particular context, but I have noticed that there is a fair amount of variety in the openness which speakers use to produce the vowel, even in isolation. I'll be sure to keep my ears open for that! Had a feeling you would get a kick out of the paper as well (I think you also used the term vocal quality before?). Cheers!