Ultimate Japanese Pronunciation Guide
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Absolute Beginner Videos Ultimate Japanese Pronunciation Guide 5. Perfect Pronunciation of Japanese Consonants – Group 2
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5. Perfect Pronunciation of Japanese Consonants – Group 2

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1 Introduction 2 Lesson Materials 3 Review
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Michelle Michelle
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Posting in Japanese? Leave a translation. It's good practice and helps others.

avatar JapanesePod101.com Friday at 6:30 pm

Do you know any word that contains one of these consonants?
avatar JapanesePod101.com June 20th, 2016 at 12:39 am

Erinana　さん、
Konnichiwa.
Actually Japanese ら, り, る, れ and ろ are close to ‘l’ sound.
When you pronounce ‘l’ and ‘d’, a movement of your tongue and mouth is same.
The difference is ‘l’ is a non-voice sound and ‘d’ is a voice sound.
Consequently, I think you thought Japanese ら, り, る, れ and ろ are close to ‘d.’ :smile:

Ian san,
Konnichiwa.
I see.
Practice makes you perfect! :wink:

Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

avatar Ian June 16th, 2016 at 1:06 am

I’m having a difficult time with ん. Maybe I’m just overthinking it, but every time I try to say anything containing ん it just doesn’t feel right. I’ll keep at it, though!

avatar Erinana June 14th, 2016 at 9:28 am

Do you think that the r sound in Japanese is closer to a d sound in English?

avatar JapanesePod101.com June 6th, 2016 at 6:42 am

Helen　さん、
Konnichiwa.
When n is followed by p, b or m, it sounds like m. For example, tenpura (tempura; pronounced ten-poo-rah) sounds like tempura.
When n is followed by k or g, it sounds like it’s being articulated at the back of the mouth, as in ginkō (bank; pronounced geen-kohh).
Other is the alveolar ridge, which is the area right behind your teeth. We make the sounds [t, d, s, z] there. That means that ん becomes a [n] sound, the same as the one that begins words like “Narnia” and “navel-gazing”.
Next, let’s look at vowels, which are made without touching the tongue or lips. To make ん before a vowel, nasalize the preceding vowel. Please try saying the words “win” and “wit”, and notice how the /ɪ/ sound changes. Now try “boon” and “boot”. English speakers naturally nasalize vowels before a nasal consonant, so you need to be able to do that at will in Japanese. Japanese speakers also seem to use this before the [ɸu] sound, ふ.
¥ 千円（せんえん）[sẽẽɴ]
¥ 三位（さんい）[sãi]
¥ 原因（げんいん）[gẽĩɴ]
インフルエンザ [ĩɸu̥ɾuenza]
Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

avatar Helen May 31st, 2016 at 1:36 am

And せんねん is 1000 years - there’s another modification of ん.

avatar Helen May 31st, 2016 at 1:17 am

せんえん is often pronounced more like sen-yen (still have to be careful not to say sen-nyen). It’s another modification like in うんめい and さんか.

http://assets.languagepod101.com/dictionary/japanese/audiomp3.php?kana=せんえん&kanji=千円

avatar JapanesePod101.com June 29th, 2015 at 6:50 pm

Mike san,
Konnichiwa.
Thank you for the post.
We are happy the lesson helped you. :smile:
Yuki　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

avatar Pax June 27th, 2015 at 6:40 am

This lesson helped me a lot! I always pronounced the r like in Spanish and I never understood why it didn’t sound similar to an “L”. And I didn’t know how to pronounce “n” correctly. It’s a bit hard to get used to it, but I’ll manage eventually :grin:

avatar JapanesePod101.com October 4th, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Mikael　さん、

Konnichiwa. :smile:
I didn’t know the similarity between Japanese and sweetish.
Thank you for telling us that.
By the way, as you pointed out, Japanese sounds ofらりるれろ are close to la, li, lu, le, and lo.
If you stick to the sounds, your pronunciation would be good.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

avatar Mikael October 4th, 2014 at 5:24 am

Konnichiwa :smile:

It’s cool that the Japanese way to say (n) is the same way we in Sweden say (ng) :laughing:

It’s more problem with the ( ra, ri, ru, re, ro) It sounds more like (la, li, lu, le, lo) when I say it :sob:

Exept that it’s much like Swedish.

Domo arigatou gozaimasu for good lessons

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