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Japanese Phonetics Episode 53—Updated with high-quality native recordings! (Patreon)

Published:
2018-11-23 07:29:50
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Good evening Patrons! The fifty-third episode of Japanese Phonetics is live! In this lesson we explore at the Japanese approximants, や [ja] and わ [ɰa], as well as common issues and good to be aware of points for each sound.

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 #53: The Japanese approximants 'y' and 'w'

The fifty-third episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this lesson we look at the approximants 'y' and 'w'. Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Andreas K.

Hi Dougan and thank you for all these awesome and very comprehensible lessons. It may be obvious. But can you confirm that ウィ is one mora long? So ウィンドウ has one mora less than ウインドウ. Thank you :)

Dogen
>>147534411

Hi, Andreas! JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. Thanks for asking—if you have a question that means there are likely others wondering the same thing. Yes, ウィ is a single mora while ウイ is two mora. Any kana combination using a small kana (like ァィゥェォ, ャュョ, etc.) is a single mora, so ヴァ, ウィ, シャ, ジョ, etc. are all single mora. Hope this helps!

TJapan

Thanks again Dogen! I think I do round my w-sounds so I'll need to be careful... I'm eagerly anticipating your ん video as it's probably my worst area. How's Beppu? Getting cold yet? It's getting chilly over here in Tokyo now...

Dogen
>>17394414

Hi TJ! Glad to you able to learn from this video as well. It's usually pretty easy to unround your 'u' and 'w' sounds, just try to relax your lips as much as possible ^^ Stay tuned for the ん video, it will be filled with information! Very, very cold in Beppu right now. Already got out the heat-tech haha. Thanks for the continued support! ^^

tensaimon

Interesting stuff, I'd been aware that in rapid speech 言う (いう）becomes ゆう and now I know why: because ゆう is basically いう said with an instantaneous transition from い to う.　

Nathan Vegdahl

Even in English, I always wondered what the difference between "w" and "ui" is, since it feels like the mouth generally does the same thing. To clarify: is the difference between e.g. "w" and the diphthong "ui" (in english) just that the first sound is unvoiced in w? In Japanese I assume there is the additional difference that わ uses gliding, but うあ is supposed to be two distinct sounds, even if they sometimes get blended in practice in fast speech...? As always, a great video! My mind expands every time you post these. :-)

Dogen
>>17524344

Indeed, this is almost undoubtably the reason ^^ Probably the reason that いいえ developed the いや variant as well!

Dogen
>>17537630

Hi Nathan! That's one of the primary differences, though it might not be best to use the term 'unvoiced' (unvoiced implies that the speaker might be exhaling during the 'first' sound in 'w'), It's not so much that the sound is unvoiced, but that the following vowel is immediately articulated from the first sound's position. Of course, 'w' can also be articulated into vowels other an 'i' as well, as in 'ua' 'uo', etc. The audible difference between わ and うあ will get significantly reduced in very rapid speech, but yes, the primary difference is that in the latter the first vowel will be at least somewhat articulated. Hope that this helps! Cheers!

Hannah

After watching this I've definitely been curving my lips to make a 'w'. Not doing that I wanted to point that saying「私」is WAAAAAAY easier to say in rapid speech. Give it a try!

Dogen
>>23785885

Glad you were able to pick up on that and can feel yourself improving!

eightiesjapan

Hi Dogen, I'm having a difficulty of finding out how to pronounce は when it's not pronounced as HA. For example: 日本の地図はありますか。the は sounds like it is VA (sorry for this informal representation of sounds) rather than WA. But often 私は, like in: 私は背が低いです。sounds like it's leaning towards WA. Sometimes it sounds stronger like it is VA (as in 'various'), sometimes it sounds softer like it is WA (as in 'what's up'). Let me know in which video you discussed that, if not, I'm dying to know how to distinguish that sound and how exactly it needs to be pronounced. Thank you for your time!

Dogen
>>28182833

Hi Batou! I'ver never really experienced (heard) this, but it's plausible that if a speaker was talking in a lazy matter, with their lips semi-closed, that their 'wa' sounds could come off as more of a 'va' sound due to the increased friction caused by their lips. That said, I wouldn't recommend imitating this, or even thinking about the 'wa' sound in this matter—a clean, clear 'wa' is definitely better for virtually all circumstances! Hope that this helps! Cheers!

MaximumPower

Hey Dogen, thank you very much for another great video. I have a question about the よ sound. I can't help but hear the phrase 何だよ or really any だ＋よ as 何だ -い -よ. Is that phantom い sound I'm hearing really just the same stream of air being shifted form the だ sound to the よ sound, where you start in the い position? I hope this question makes sense - I feel like I'm going crazy haha! Thanks again for your time. 　

Dogen
>>29793208

Hi Jacob! That indeed would be my best guess—because the よ sound starts in the い position, it's plausible that you're hearing the 'end of the い sound', even if an actual い isn't being said. Not something to worry about however. Hope that this helps! Cheers!

RedAgent14

I'm curious: why are ウィand ウェ preferred over ヰ and ヱ for representing [ɰi] and [ɰe], respectively?

Dogen
>>31564884

Hi Red! I've never studied this in detail before, but I would guess because these sounds disappeared from Japanese for some time the need to use symbols to represent them also disappeared, and now because these sounds are typically only found in loan words the normal symbols are used instead. Hope this helps!

Enrico Paolini

Hi Dogen! I've always pronounced the ワ行 sounds just like you say in this lesson, but when I checked the Japanese Wikipedia page for Japanese phonology (日本語の音韻), they say that the standard realisation of this sound is as a voiced bilabial approximant β̞, and that the ɰ is still quite correct, but somehow 'less standard'. This really surprised me, because I associate the β̞ sound with the Spanish intervocalic 'b/v', and so I thought it ludicrous that it might also be a sound that I'd always associated with 'w'. But then I listened to the 'official' pronunciations from the NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (an older digital edition with sound, as unfortunately the newer one seems to be book-only), and indeed every single one of them uses the β̞ sound, and I have no idea why I'd never picked up on this before. Listening to a few pronunciations online from Forvo, I found more of a mix, with some people using β̞ and others using ɰ — the latter being perhaps slightly more common. And actually, now that I've learnt this, I've noticed that it feels more natural for me to use the β̞ sound when speaking myself, with the ɰ sound feeling somewhat forced or overenunciated. Sorry for the long post, but my question is: do you have any insight on this phenomenon? Have you ever chanced upon any more in-depth description during your research? I thought it might be a matter of ɰ being 'proper pronunciation' and β̞ being 'lazy/slurred pronunciation', but Wikipedia seems to disagree, and the NHK speakers, which enunciate everything very carefully, use the β̞ sound themselves. Could it be a generational difference, with older speakers preferring β̞ and younger speakers gradually shifting towards ɰ (which might explain the ratio on Forvo)? Sorry for the overly long post, and thank you for your time and effort in making this lovely series, it has helped me a great deal over the past few years!

Dogen

Hi Enrico! I've actually never come across this, and I just looked up this sound in about 6 different phonetic books (both Japanese and English resources) and they all used [ɰ] (though one of them said that the Japanese ワ sound is in-between [ɰ] and [w]). I think perhaps what could be happening is that in very careful pronunciation certain speakers are exhibiting lip compression (this also happens with the Japanese う), which gives the sound a β̞ feel to it, rather than a ɰ feel. Thus, I actually would imagine that at normal speed the sound would be closer to [ɰ], though it would depend on the surrounding sounds and speaker as well. I apologize for not being able to give any additional insights on this topic, again, the resources I use have always used [ɰ], and I would personall encourage you to think of it as [ɰ], or as あ said from the う position. Cheers!

Enrico Paolini
>>36309568

Thanks for the reply! I've done some reflecting myself these past two days, and I'm inclined to agree with your idea about lip compression. I've tried to say words pronouncing the sound in both ways alternately, and I noticed that while I do feel a slight difference between them when speaking, when I listen back to my own recordings I can't really tell them apart with any degree of confidence and recognise when I said [β̞] and when I said [ɰ], except when I noticeably botched the pronunciation and ended up with a 'full' [b] or [w] respectively. I will definitely stick to [ɰ], but it was fun to experiment a little. =) Thanks again!

Matt

Hi I was wondering if you might consider doing a lesson on ファ、フィ、フォ、ヴィ、ウェ, etc. (not sure what these are called). I understand that it is best to be consistent, but they way they are spelt in katakana does not make it very intuitive. A term that comes up so often these days is ウイルス・ウィルス・ビールス・バイラス・ヴィールス. ヴィ in particular, I do not even know how to pronounce properly. So I usually end up pronouncing these loan words in an English clique accent. This specific point should call to mind what you said in lesson #48 as well. The consonant H, 6:28 about ファースト. Many thanks.

Dogen
>>38999025

Hi Matt! I think this is a great question and I'll try to create a lesson about this in the future—forgive me for not addressing this in more detail in this post; I'd like to do more research before giving any definitive answers!

Strange Guy

Hi! I have a question. Should lips touch each other for a brief moment when pronouncing 'wa', 'wi' etc? From the video It seems like that you don't make such a contact but I found that I do it.

Dogen
>>44766701

Hi Strange. Because these sounds start front the Japanese う position, it's best to remember what happens in the Japanese う—lip compression (although often times this only occurs in careful pronunciation). Vance (2008:54-55 [The Sounds of Japanese]) describes it in the following way: "To describe it accurately, we need to distinguish lip protrusion from lip compression. In ordinary rounding, the corners of the mouth come forward and the lips protrude. In compression, on the other hand, the jaw closes and brings the lips together vertically so that the side portions are in contact, but there's no conspicuous protrusion. There is clear lip compression in careful Japanese pronunciation. However, in connected speech at normal conversational tempos, compression is generally weaker, and often totally absent. As a result Japanese /u/ is commonly described as unrounded." Hopefully this helps! If you're still having a bit of difficulty understanding this phenomenon I would encourage you to google 'Japanese lip compression'. Cheers!