When I started Japanese I was expecting a really difficult time with its pronunciation since Japanese is one of the few Category 4 languages which is the hardest level of difficulty in the Foreign Service Institute language difficulty ranks. Oh before I forget for context, here's a link explaining the language category difficulty.
https://blog.rosettastone.com/the-complete-list-of-language-difficulty-rankings/
I am currently learning Vietnamese and had learned Italian, Indonesian, Russian, Farsi, French, and German months ago. The hardest part of the lessons were pronunciation esp for the non-European Farsi and the Slavic Russian. Took me so many times to get a passing grade on Instant Immersion for those two languages and the three other languages I had a bit more difficulty in practising speech than almost any other aspects. Don't get me started on Vietnamese where it took me over 2 weeks to get the first lesson with a passing score and my throat's been hurting two weeks prior form practising Vietnamese for the first time. To the point I'm skipping speech lessons and am just focusing on the writing, reading, and grammar exercise of Vietnamese in the software.
I was expecting Japanese to be 5X harderhan Vietnamese………
Except I passed the fist 3 units' pronunciation tests! In fact I decided to skip on reading and writing lessons because Kanji is so hard and I'm still laddled with Vietnamese and just focus on Japanese………. Because the pronunciation was not just easier than I expected but I'm passing tests on a first try each time so far! Tot he point I'd say Japanese is not only easier than German in pronunciation but is about the same level as Italian and French pronunciation if not even easier!
I'm so darn surprised because as one of the few Category 4 languages I really was expecting more frustration in Japanese than I'm already having with Vietnamese, at least increased by threefold. But instead I'm passing lessons with relatively much more ease than one would expect for a language being touted as one of the top 5 hardest in the world in passing speech lessons in a computer software and practising phonology!
I ask is this unusual or is it actual normal for learning Japanese? Admittedly since I already learned several languages I have a big advantage over most people, so to be particular I ask how it'd go for a typical English-only speaker who never learned any other language as far as learning Japanese pronunciation and other elements of phonology goes?
by CascalaVasca
2 comments
I don’t think it’s unusual to find Japanese pronunciation fairly simple for English experiences. I always found it to be relatively easy to pick up (with the exception of りょ, which for some reason I still have to concentrate to pronounce correctly after 40 years of practice. 🙄)
Part of the simplicity comes from the relatively narrow set of sounds used in Japanese. David Peterson mentioned this briefly in The Art of Language Invention (great book if you’re intrigued by linguistics). Languages settle around a subset of the sounds possible to create with the human mouth and throat, and with only 50ish “consonant+vowel” syllables to work with, Japanese’s subset is a little narrow compared to many other languages. It also explains why Japanese also sounds so fast sometime — with less variety of sounds to use, more sounds have to be used to create the meaning that might be shorter in sounds in another language.
My guess is that the Level 4 categorization (from an English learners perspective) has much more to do with the difference of the grammar, the nuanced levels of formality, and the complexity of the writing systems.
I find Japanese pronunciation really easy yeah, it’s just the ‘r’ and ‘t’ sounds in particular that you need to adjust your mouth movements for. Once you read/listen enough then it’s easy to get the diction and intonation down too, I don’t really believe in that pitch accent stuff that’s pedalled online and nobody has ever corrected me on that when speaking Japanese to native speakers or people much better than myself.