[Book Reading] 四つん這い yomikata: the answer is ばい. i read はい. if 這い occurrences are different each time, why?/what’s the rule here?/just memorize?

5 comments

1. What really strikes me (in general, not only for Japanese) is the extent to which fundamental and structured language teaching has gone down the drain. If you’ll forgive the analogy, it’s like teaching Einsteinian physics without passing through Newtonian physics first or doing advanced trigonometry without any notion of algebra.

   There are (specifically for Japanese) very precise rules for alliteration and how that modifies pronunciation. If your teachers or yourself can’t be bothered to work with those before starting to read standard texts, that’s just down to the language learning method, not to the rules.

2. It’s because it’s preceded by ん. ん + typically voiceless sound switches to a voiced sound. You see this pattern all the time in Japanese.  

   Here’s a super basic example: 三千. Separately, these are read as san and sen. But when you put them together, since san ends with ん, the voiceless せ turns to the voiced ぜ. 

3. Where do you find these to read owo

4. My Japanese friend just told me to go with whatever rolls best off your tongue and seems less taxing on your throat to pronounce. If you feel the slightest hint that something is a pain in the ass to say, then it needs to be modified more often than not. Other than that, it’s useful to pick up on what they’re modified into e.g. は→ば, ち→ぢ, ほ→ぼ.

   For example:
   1) 誰の入れ知恵？

   It’s slightly harder to say “Dare no I-Re-Chi-E?” than “Dare no I-Re-Dji-E?”.

   2) まさかの一目惚れ

   You’re meant to feel that it’s slightly harder to say “Masaka no Hito-Me-Ho-Re” than “Masaka no Hito-Me-Bo-Re”.

5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku
   Semi-systematic with a lot of exceptions