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Japanese Phonetics Episode 56—Live with high-quality native recordings! (Patreon)

Published:
2019-01-29 14:08:25
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Note: In this lesson I translate "買っておくよ (かっておくよ)" as 'I'll buy it for you," but this may not be the best translation in all cases. We could also translate this into, "I'll buy this just in case," or, "I'll buy it, seeing as I (we, you, etc.) might need it," depending on the circumstances.

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page 

Good evening Patrons! The fifty-sixth episode of Japanese Phonetics is live! In this lesson we explore slurring in Japanese, looking at useful tricks such as N-vowel deletion, and pre-は vowel-replacement.

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 #56: Rules and guidelines for slurring

The fifty-sixth episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this lesson we explore slurring in Japanese, looking at tricks such as N-vowel deletion, and pre-は vowel-replacement. If you have any questions leave a comment on the Patreon post, and thank you all for your continued support! Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Matze.

So know I think I finally get the line in a song: いきてりゃいいのよ　actually is いきてればいいのよ or am I off here. I haven't learnt this specific grammar point yet. Thank you Dogen for making all of this. It's so interesting and well made if your able to understand the English. I would recommend this to everyone :)

Dogen
>>121344549

Hi, Matze. JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. My apologies for not catching your question sooner; we're not getting some notifications from Patreon. As to the song, I think you've got it. I've heard 「てりゃ」 as a shortened/casual form of 「てれば」, and a few searches in both Japanese and English resources support this. Good catch!

spectria.limina

Hi Dogen! Thanks as always for your excellent lessons and for sharing the fruits of your research! One thing I think I've noticed recently is that when a vowel is nasalized by ん, in rapid speech it seems to get shortened, e.g. /oN/ > [õõ] > [õ]. This makes sense to me intellectually, since the nasalization keeps it phonetically distinct. It feels to me like it happens frequently with honorifics in particular—though, since those are trailing consonants, this would also imply that the uvular consonant is getting assimilated into the vowel, so maybe I'm just mis-hearing. But I also think I hear it with e.g. 結婚する. In slower speech I usually hear mid-word vowel-ん pronounced as a diphthong—which is obviously bimoraic—while in quicker speech they are more often monophthongs I think? So maybe I'm just mishearing the monophthong version as being shorter than it is.

Dogen
>>153881113

Hi Spectria! Thank you for the comment. I saw your original question in my e-mail here and came to write a reply, but it seems that you have edited your comment a couple of times since then, so I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. Do you mind rephrasing you question with the new information you've picked up in mind? Thank you very much!

vzwGrey

Is there a specific reason you didn't mention ～ている ⇒ ～てる alongside the "rules" for ～ていく and ～ておく at the beginning?

Meme

とても　勉強になりました。Especially, I love your sample sentences. I hear them so often in everyday conversation. ありがとうございました。

Dogen
>>19351397

Hi Grey! I think most intermediate and advanced learners are aware of this trick, so I decided to leave it out and go straight for ていく and ておく, which, in my eyes, are a bit more advanced. Cheers!

Michael B. McLaughlin

It seems like, especially with your recommendation against slurring 食べては into 食べちゃ and すれば into すりゃ, and keeping in mind examples like -ている becoming -てる, it's possible to potentially form a general rule that slurring, while ensuring that the speaker avoids rough-sounding speech, should only be used when the combination is a word final mora followed by a frontal vowel. Possibly with some phonetic restrictions on word final mora (e.g. perhaps only unvoiced CV word final mora; I haven't explored this idea in depth). Thoughts? In particular, can you think of any slurring that would break this possible rule in a way that couldn't be resolved with rule-based qualifications? I intend to only follow/use known, accepted slurring. But I can't help but wonder if there's any potential merit to my idea, since it could potentially help with listening comprehension at the very least, if it holds up.

Michael B. McLaughlin
>>19392184

Actually, I think I messed up my vowel terminology. Which invalidates my idea. I was reaching for a "rule" based on the fact that it seems like it's only final mora with an え sound interacting with an immediate following vowel mora that's い or お.

Alex B.

This was super interesting! When I lived there I heard most of these a lot, especially r -> ん, like 信じられない becoming 信じらんない etc. I also remember the ておく becoming とく thing confusing me in the first few months of being there (similarly with 〜とる being prevalent where I lived.. having the added layer of being a dialectal thing too!) Episodes like these are definitely incredibly useful especially to anyone looking to visit or move to Japan, since not having much knowledge on contractions and slurred speech can be overwhelming! Excellent work as always!

Gabe Tanenhaus

I've always been confused with why ちゃ happens, because to me it doesn't feel like a natural shortening of ては. I mean to say that ch is nowhere near t or w. Is there some insight you have to why this happens?

Dogen
>>19496666

Hi Gabe! Ch is actually fairly close to T, (both created in the upper front part of the mouth), but their mode of articulation isn't the same, which is why they feel so different. T to ch is actually a fairly common slurring pattern across languages ^^

Dogen
>>19485506

Hi Alex! Happy to hear that you found the lesson informative and worth watching! Dialect really does tend to make things more difficult, which is why I personally always try to stick with 標準語. Thanks for the support!

tensaimon

one thing I've noticed from watching Netflix subtitles and reading online (especially social network stuff ...wwww) is how very phonetically japanese is written when representing spoken japanese - i suppose it's the equivalent of text-talk in english but text talk seems to have fallen out of fashion in english but is thriving in japanese.

Dogen
>>19640554

Indeed. It's actually a great way to learn a lot of slang and phonetic tricks!

Claes Wächtler

Hi Dōgen/きみ, ては being abbreviated to ちゃ is an interesting phenomenon to me. Why do you recommend not to use this? I learned it specifically in patterns and phrases like 食べちゃダメだよ. By the way, is 食べてしまう becoming 食べちまう and even 食べちゃうa related phonetic phenomenon? What are your thoughts on this? It would make me really happy if you took your time to respond. Cheers!

Dogen
>>65639166

Hi Claes! As for the phenomenon ては becoming ちゃ, I think it’s acceptable in many situations. I’m a native Japanese speaker, and I would use 〜ちゃ instead of 〜ては when I talk to older people or even to my boss at work. And I would not mind at all if someone younger than I use 〜ちゃ when I talk to him/her. However, I wouldn’t use it in very formal public speaking. Also, if you are working for a prestigious hotel for example, you would not be allowed to use 〜ちゃ to the hotel guests. So it really depends on the situation and if you are not used to Japanese culture, it’s hard to tell when to use it or when not to. I think that’s why Dogen doesn’t recommend using it. But as long as you use it when you are talking to your friends and people who are close to you, it will be totally fine! And yes you’re right about that 食べちゃう is the slurred version of 食べてしまう! But 食べちまう is a Tokyo dialect of 食べてしまう, and it sounds masculine. I have an impression that only men or people in 東京の下町 (old town in Tokyo) use the expression, and also it’s used by relatively older generations. But you might see younger generations use 〜ちまう too when they are talking casually or goofing around among friends. Incidentally, it seems like that 〜ちゃう comes from Tokyo dialect too, though there are various opinions about its origin. I hope this helps! (^^) -Kimi

Andrew Nelson

Hi Dogen! I just wanted to share how useful this series has been to me recently, as someone entering the final stages of MIA (mid stage 3 right now), and as someone who cares immensely about having a near-perfect accent at a MINIMUM, as I have Japanese family and am only just learning the language much later in life. I don't know if this quite fits with this video or should go somewhere else, but I wanted to also mention one of my favorite slurs, ない turning into just ん sometimes, like in 知らん or わからん. Did you have any thoughts on this specific slur? Thank you again for your amazing work!

Dogen
>>97195490

Hi, Andrew! Thanks for your comment and your support. It means a lot. I think that at this point わからん has become ubiquitous and can be considered standard Japanese, but it’s hard to say for other words, such as 知らん. 知らん to me this sounds a bit rude (fine to use with friends probably), and because I’m not living in Tokyo right now and don’t hang out with too many young Japanese people I don’t really know if it’s widespread. Thus, it’s difficult for me to comment on this or make any recommendations on when and how to use it, other than, again, わからん. Of course わからん should only be used in casual situations as well. 〜らん gives off more of a dialect vibe to me—even in informal situations—but that could, again, be my ignorance or lack of exposure to other dialects.