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Episode 5.1: Japanese voice and speaking style (Patreon)

Published:
2021-07-16 05:06:27
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2026-06
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Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good morning, patrons!

After much research and discussion with a qualified native speaker, I am happy to bring you episode 5.1! In this lesson, we look at Japanese voice and speaking style, and see how it is different from American English voice and speaking style. This lesson is a bit of a departure from other lessons, being a bit more anecdotal and personal, but I strong believe it will prove beneficial for all patrons. Please note that upon releasing this lesson, I've also deleted previous videos on 'vocal placement', which is, arguably, another way to refer to what I discuss in this lesson.

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

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Comments

Phen-the Moogle

例の人は英語がうますぎるので英語でしゃべってる時はJapanese speaking styleは全然日本人っぽくなかった気がします。ジャパニーズイングリッシュじゃなかったし、「アイライクマイジョブ」って言ってなかったから(笑) I get what this lesson is going for, but I think it would be better to even show a more dramatic difference between the two or introduce another Japanese speaker that doesn't know English well, or maybe they will be introduced in a future lesson.

Bastiaan_v_O

for me personally it's annoying to hear the wrong pronouncements

Gerry

Hey, Dogen, is "Japanese Pronunciation for Communication" by Nobuko Mizutani a good book to start with?

Dogen
>>113398471

Hi, Gerry. I'm not familiar with this book, so I can't really comment. Sorry I can't give you more that that.

Philip Butt

Japanese is more like Spanish in this regard. No prolongation, stress etc.

Trainfan1055

Technically, the American speaking style of かわいい is to pronounce it as 怖い. "Aww, 怖い!" (Quote from Crash Bandicoot: It's About Time.) "Let's make things a little bit more 怖い" (Quote from Animaniacs 2016) I get the point you're trying to make, though.

「 Masuya 」

I think her style even while speaking English style was still a bit Japanese type. But yes I get what you are trying to say.

Ben

It took me a few replays to start hearing it, but now I can't un-hear it. American English definitely has that drop-off at the end of a sentence, and somehow I've been conditioned to match my lung capacity with my position in the sentence without ever having been specifically taught to do that. I feel like this will be a significant hurdle. I've already spent two years learning kanji, grammar, and vocab, so it's likely I've already transposed many of my English habits onto bad Japanese speech. I suppose it's a good thing I've never had to produce Japanese, only understand it in spoken/written form so far...

Dogen
>>147336761

JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. It's never too late to fix bad habits, it just means a little more effort to unlearn those and set the good habits. Here's hoping the rest of the series helps you!

Dan

What a coincidence! I was watching a video about this from Kaz, keeping tight in the throat is something he mentioned to replicate the Japanese speaking style, rather than using a lot of breath. This is a good video, I find my scouse accent is completely different from the Japanese speaking style, so it's good to have good examples to refer back too. Thanks Dogen.

Sekai

I would like to start off by saying "thank you!!" because this is very helpful, but I reminded myself of a video where you said when talking, the volume of one's voice naturally goes lower (terracing?) It even seems that video isn't up anymore because I can't find it in the early videos, but I naturally feel it contradicts the "constant escape of airflow". Am I misinterpreting it or are is there more to it?

Jason Crowley

I noticed she spoke a higher pitch in Japanese then more or less transposed it down a step or so for the English speaking style. Would you say when trying to sound more native to pitch your natural English speaking style up a bit to sound more native? I imagine this differs between the sexes. Or is it more important to focus attention on the orderly nature of the Japanese speaking style (as compared to the more loose English speaking style)?

Dogen
>>63883204

Hi Sekai! Thank you for your comment, and so glad to hear the lesson is helpful! I know this can be very confusing, so let me explain. I think what you’re talking about is the Episode #26 “Introduction to terracing”, correct? https://www.patreon.com/posts/japanese-episode-14184673 If so, in that lesson, Dogen is talking about how to make a spoken Japanese sound natural by using this technique called “terracing.” The terracing means, to say it simply, lowering the base pitch at each downstep. So when you apply terracing, the overall pitch goes lower and lower. Thus, it’s all about the “pitch”. However, in this lesson, he is talking about the “speaking style”, which is characterized by a voice placement / vocal quality for speaking Japanese. Now the Japanese speaking style consists of several factors, and the “constant airflow” is one of them. Japanese is rather spoken at a constant rhythm, compared to American English. And by speaking with the constant airflow, you can keep the rhythm, and that will let you sound closer to native Japanese speakers. I hope this helps! (^^) -Kimi

Dogen
>>64036340

Hi Jason! Thank you for the comment! And as you noticed, my pitch does get higher when I speak Japanese, though this does NOT happen intentionally. Just by shifting the speaking style from Japanese to English, my voice naturally becomes lower and gets deeper sound. And I agree, it can differ between the sexes, but in my opinion, it’s more like that it differs depending on the person. There are some bilingual speakers (English and Japanese) who speak both languages almost at the same pitch with the same vocal quality while they sound perfectly natural in both languages. But generally speaking, I think that most people get higher pitch to some extent when they speak Japanese. And yes! As you mention, the important message of this lesson is to focus on the difference between the orderly nature of the Japanese speaking style and the freer nature of the American English speaking style. Now that you hear the difference, you can easily try them and feel the difference in your mouth. And just make sure to record yourself, so that you will start hearing the difference in your voice! I hope this helps! (^^) -Kimi

Sylnic

I've known about the pitch accent stuff with Japanese for a bit now, but hearing the styles compared really shows the differences. It almost sounds like the Japanese speaking style is singing when compared to the American style because of the pitch accent and mora (the slowed down voicing probably emphasizes this as well). I found that really interesting. Thanks for putting this together, I'm looking forward to the rest of the series :)

Ruskin

One thing that stands out to me is that the Japanese speaking style is less "buzzy" than the American one. I've been looking into voice feminisation recently and it involves controlling a quality called vocal weight, which could be paraphrased as "buzziness". It corresponds physiologically to the amount vocal fold mass engaged in phonation, and spectrally to the intensity of high-pitch harmonics. A low vocal weight lends itself to breathiness because of the reduced air pressure, makes it easier to manipulate pitch, and sometimes subjectively feels as if the sound is resonating in your head. The earlier video on vocal placement mentioned several similar things so I just thought I'd mention it in case this is one of the phenomena involved. (Video with more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PNnBRBfOVY)

Dogen
>>66914728

Hi, Ruskin. I hadn't heard of this, but that's quite interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Bastiaan_v_O

She speaks English in a strange way when she supposed to use a real English voice. But I get the point you are trying to make.