there’s going to be a lot of sounds that are hard to distinguish, like つ vs す, all of the voiced vs devoiced consonants like き vs ぎ, multiple vowels vs diphthongs like りゆ vs りゅ, and long vs short vowels like りゅ vs りゅう. they just all take practice, and a lot is context clues.
think of the second one as “key” as in a lock and key. but the romanization would be closer to “KI” or, the K sound in “kia”
i would use the hiragana but i only have the korean keyboard rn.
ち Tch e き Kee
ち chi き ki
I started japenese 1 week ago so don’t judge me pls The left one is she and right one ki
I don’t know what duolingo voice is like. But it’s a good comparison to Japanese people being unable to distinguish sounds in English. L and R for example. They can’t hear the difference.
I spent ages trying to explain the difference between batter and butter to my Japanese girlfriend. She literally couldn’t hear the difference. Too subtle.
The consonant (tɕ) in ち is kind of similar to the English “ch”, but without the built in “u” sound.
The new voices on Duolingo for Japanese are terrible, especially the one meant to sound like a little girl. It’s the worst. Additionally, some of the kanji is mispronounced in certain lessons for certain words. Make sure to always check out the Hiragana spelling of a word to make sure you pronounce it correctly so you don’t mistakenly learn an incorrect pronunciation.
I see ち and き and all I can think of is ファミチキ 🤤🤤🤤
Its worth taking some time to learn hiragana separately from duolingo first.
There are some good songs online for learning the Japanese alphabet and getting used to the different sounds 🙂
I would advise going through the tab on the bottom that teaches you each character before going through the actual hiragana lessons.
16 comments
They’re pronounced differently, like you’ve said
there’s going to be a lot of sounds that are hard to distinguish, like つ vs す, all of the voiced vs devoiced consonants like き vs ぎ, multiple vowels vs diphthongs like りゆ vs りゅ, and long vs short vowels like りゅ vs りゅう. they just all take practice, and a lot is context clues.
think of the second one as “key” as in a lock and key. but the romanization would be closer to “KI” or, the K sound in “kia”
i would use the hiragana but i only have the korean keyboard rn.
ち
Tch e
き
Kee
ち chi き ki
I started japenese 1 week ago so don’t judge me pls
The left one is she and right one ki
I don’t know what duolingo voice is like. But it’s a good comparison to Japanese people being unable to distinguish sounds in English. L and R for example. They can’t hear the difference.
I spent ages trying to explain the difference between batter and butter to my Japanese girlfriend. She literally couldn’t hear the difference. Too subtle.
The consonant (tɕ) in ち is kind of similar to the English “ch”, but without the built in “u” sound.
See [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolo-palatal_affricate)
​
The consonant (kʲ) in き is a palatalized “k” sound, like the “k” in the English word “kiss”.
See [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_plosive)
The new voices on Duolingo for Japanese are terrible, especially the one meant to sound like a little girl. It’s the worst. Additionally, some of the kanji is mispronounced in certain lessons for certain words. Make sure to always check out the Hiragana spelling of a word to make sure you pronounce it correctly so you don’t mistakenly learn an incorrect pronunciation.
I see ち and き and all I
can think of is
ファミチキ 🤤🤤🤤
Its worth taking some time to learn hiragana separately from duolingo first.
There are some good songs online for learning the Japanese alphabet and getting used to the different sounds 🙂
I would advise going through the tab on the bottom that teaches you each character before going through the actual hiragana lessons.
For learn kana you should use Kana pro
(Is better than Duolingo for learn kana )
https://kana.pro/
Later some of the voices will pronounce the が particle like “nga.”
き is “ki” sounds like kiss
ち is “chi” sounds like cheese
Duolingo voices are terrible