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Japanese Phonetics Episode 41—LIVE (Updated with native recordings!) (Patreon)

Published:
2018-05-06 09:19:33
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good evening Patrons! The forty-first episode of Japanese Phonetics is live, now updated with native recordings! In this lesson we look at the consonants K and G, as well as some advanced phonetic phenomena related to these sounds.

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 #41: The consonants k and g

The forty-first episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this lesson we look at the consonants k and g. If you have any questions leave a comment below, and thank you all for your continued support! Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Fabian

Low-key have been waiting for this mini series of lessons! G sounds have definitely been a trouble for me because of 鼻濁音. It’s one thing for people to say it doesn’t matter, but when it’s abundant in audio resources, it definitely throws me off. Thank you for providing your insight and giving me peace of mind! Lol

Dogen
>>12116301

Definitely can relate! I couldn't figure out what was going on with 鼻濁音 for the longest time—even many phonetic resources don't cover it in detail. It wasn't until I began reading the Japanese literature on the topic that I could make any sense of the phenomenon haha. Anyway glad to be of service, and don't sweat 鼻濁音！＾＾

tensaimon

I learned 動く with 鼻濁音, from a bbc textbook I think, and I'm still saying it like that I'll listen carefully around me as perhaps I am out of date (tho I am in my 40's so it may be age-appropriate...笑)

vzwGrey

Not related to the video itself, but a pitch-accent related question: What are the rules -- if there are any useful ones -- in regards to the pitch accent of compound verbs (e.g. 降り出す or 飛び込む)? Thank you very much in advance!

Mark Harrison

Hi Dogen – I’ve devoured pretty much all of your videos at this point but this is the first time I’ve actually commented on one, so first of all: thank you so much for your efforts overall! All of your videos are well-explained, thorough and insightful. On 鼻濁音: I’ve noticed it a lot in a) songs and b) certain speech patterns (your example of ですが being the most obvious). I always thought it was to differentiate the particle from か, as the meaning would be quite different. Do you know if this is (part of) the reason you still hear it occasionally in modern Japanese? In any case, I have definitely been trying to incorporate 鼻濁音into my general vocal habits, and will try to row back from now! I'm not 40 just yet...

Dogen
>>12695135

Hi Mark! Very pleased to hear you're getting so much out of the lessons! I don't think it's a means to differentiate the particle from か、as mentioned in the lesson I think that it's simply an artifact of older Japanese. Not sure why it's more common in modern Japanese than other instances of 鼻濁音, but I imagine it will become less common in time. And yes I do believe it would be good to backpedal on 鼻濁音 in general, as it's easy to use it the wrong way—the rules are quite specific! Hope this helped! ^^

Thorn

I took the habit of pronoucing nasal g sounds (although i'm 17 >.>) I wasn't aware that it was an old people thing, I read in my manual that it just sounded more polite... Will I sound strange when conversing with people around my age ? Also, since I really spent a lot of time practicing my bidakuon and i wouldn't want it to go to waste, do you recommend any documentation in order to know more about it ? Like when to use it, etc. Nice video, as always.

Dogen
>>13377575

Hi Thorn! I don't necessarily think that you will sound strange, but you may sound more polite than the other people your age, as you mentioned. The NHKアクセント辞典 has a great section on 鼻濁音 rules, but it is in Japanese! Maybe I could cover the rules in the future in an advanced lesson for those who are interested?

Dawson Harvey

I understand you dismissed 鼻濁音 as being complicated and that it's being phased out, but nevertheless I've developed an interest in learning it as I find it a very appealing aspect of Japanese speech that I'd like to take advantage of, regardless of its practicality. A few others here have demonstrated interest in it, and I would definitely like to see the rules covered myself. Also, all the native speakers I want to shadow happen to use it, so it would be a bit tricky to ignore it. I did watch some youtube videos by Japanese natives on the topic, and got a few of the basics, but I didn't catch the rules about compounds or foreign words due to my lack of language ability at the moment.

Dogen
>>21842902

Hi Dawson, thanks for the comment. I actually think that 鼻濁音 would be a great topic for a future lesson in the advanced pitch-accent sub-series, which I'm currently creating lessons for. Will try to make a video about this in the future!

Odai

Great content, I was hesitant about subscribing but now I am convinced it's worth recommending no doubt! I would like to point that が sounds like the Arabic letter "ق" and the voiced velar fricative sounds like " غ" I thought it's worth mentioning 😗 Again thanks for your great efforts

Abhi Ilindra

Japanese vowels and consonants often came pretty easy to me as I grew up speaking Telugu to my parents where aspirated and unaspirated sounds are pretty distinct. One thing I used to do *very* early on in my studies however is apply an almost Telugu stress pattern to my Japanese words and make almost every word 中高.

Dogen
>>29404044

This is understandable, almost all speakers map patterns from their native language onto whatever language they are learning!

RedAgent14

Fun fact: though never used in proper writing, there is a use of か゚, き゚, く゚, け゚, こ゚ to represent 鼻濁音 for linguistic purposes (I assume similar to how IPA is used in English dictionaries to show a word's pronunciation).

Dogen
>>31861392

Indeed! These show up in many of the Japanese resources I use to create these lessons!

Jurien

Hi Dogen, thanks for the great content. I am not a native-english speaker (I am Dutch), but I have tried saying 'skill' and 'kill' in front of a tissue and in both cases it barely moves. This was not the case when saying the english word 'cool' and japanese word 'クール'. I actually aspirate more when saying 'クール''. Do you maybe have an idea of why that is the case and what I could do the improve my aspiration? Thanks again for the great content.

Dogen
>>37460150

Hi Jurien! That's difficult to say—but I would encourage you to experiment more with the tissue exercise saying other words. It also may be helpful to think of the non-aspirated K sounds sort of like a 'weak K', or even like a G—this helped me in the past (though the K and G sounds are certainly different). Also, if you have any Korean friends that you can talk to face to face I would encourage you to ask them to critique your aspirated and non-aspirated K sounds; Korean distinguishes between them to a very high degree, so any native Korean speaker should immediately be able to tell when you saying which sound. Also remember, however, that there are instances in Japanese when noticeable aspiration is used, so I wouldn't spend too much time trying to get your K, T, and P sounds perfect. Cheers!

Tim Odagiri

In the 津軽弁 dialect in 青森 (spoken by my wife's family), it's quite common to hear the が kana row nasalized. Plus, members of the か row are upgraded to the が row in some situations, so that 行く is pronounced as いぐ.

Strange Guy

Interesting! That 'ɣ' sound is in use in some southern dialects of Russia. Moreover, for some people from there it's the only way to pronounce 'g' sound. I remember my schoolmate was constantly scolded by our english teacher because she can't pronounce 'I go' correctly ) Poor kid, she was all crying. It was unexpected to find this sound in Japanese.

GodFearsome .

I have a question regarding が and the "nasal" んが , during my shadowing studies, and also during my lessons with my teacher, i found myself having trouble with pronouncing the が used as "but" at the end of a sentence, for example: こういった場所では、ドリンクと軽食もとれますが、カラオケボックスに行く主な目的は思いきり歌うことです。As you said the "nasal んが" is not used by younger people, but since i had problems with this particular instance of が my teacher told me to say it as "んが", is this correct? Can i make it sound natural without using the "んが"?

Dogen
>>48590925

Hi! Yes, it's completely natural to use it as んが as your teacher said. It's not wrong at all to say it as んが just because most young people don't do it—it's really just a difference in how the average older person speaks vs. how the average younger person speaks. You may even find this difficult because in the shadowing you're listening to it's pronounced as んが (maybe), but you're consciously trying to say it the other way, which might cause some confusion if you're not aware of exactly which pronunciation is being used. I typically tell most people to go with が because there are many rules surrounding the 'proper' use of んが, and it's thus significantly easier to always go with が. However, this doesn't mean that using んが for "but" is a mistake by any means, it's actually considered to be the 'textbook' or 'newscaster' way of saying things (again it's just difficult to follow every rule for んが). Long story short, I wouldn't worry about this; go with the pronunciation that you find easiest, because both pronunciations are considered correct. Cheers!

GodFearsome .

Thank you very much for your answer! Keep up the awesome work!

Elise Springer

There's one word that strikes me as getting the 鼻濁音 more often than not: 東　(ひがし)... Is there any reason why this word would stick out as attracting this pronunciation, or is this just a random impression? (Or maybe it's just because NHK accounts for a disproportionate share of times I've heard the word lately?)

Dogen
>>59085226

Hi Elise! My understanding of 鼻濁音 is still somewhat limited, but based on what I know I would say that this is probably a random impression, as the word 東 is often used in the news, where announcers do often use correct 鼻濁音. Cheers!