Hello there, I am learning japanese and so far this is the only thing that really confuses me. I’m a real beginner but my goal is fluency at some point and I want to at least try to pronounce everything correctly. Sometimes the z is pronounced like in the english word “zone” or “zebra” like in 水, other times it is pronounced more like a “dz”for example in 雑誌 (ざっし) or 全部. Is there some sort of rule for when it is what or is this like something that varies from person to person?
Btw. I am learning via books and the internet so it wasn’t a teacher who told me this it’s something I noticed whilst listening to native speakers.
13 comments
Hi there,
Wikipedia’s Japanese page ([https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/さ行](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/さ行)) says that, for ざ、ず、ぜ、ぞ, the consonant “z” is generally pronounced [d͡z] either: (1) at the beginning of the “bunsetsu” (kind of like a “word”), (2) after ん, and (3) after っ. It is pronounced [z] otherwise. However, keep in mind that this is not universal and each speaker is different. 🙂
I hope this helps!
I am also learning Japanese and I found them pronouncing somewhat between Z / S / TS, whileじ being Ji.
I must be totally oblivious. I live in Japan and speak Japanese in my daily life and I’ve never really noticed a difference in the ways ざ is pronounced. Maybe you just learn it subconsciously with exposure to the words
Native here. Born and raised so never learned Japanese by breaking down in grammar and/or analyzing of sorts. So I never thought of ざ行 to be a “ts” sound. 雑誌 is pronounced “zasshi” and I don’t know where the “ts” comes in… Weird. We don’t speak like that. I find it bizarre that students are taught that way?!
Also, we’re told as kids that, “surprise, じ and ぢ sound the same!” Lol But I just realized as another user mentioned above, it is pronounced “ji” and not “zi” when written in English! “Zi” phonetics don’t really exist in our language, per say. Hope this helps
Edit: To clarify, ざじずぜぞ is spoken like za ji zu ze zo !
Japanese mostly uses the zz sound…
ザ Za (zzz…aa/ah)
ズ Zu (like zoo)
ゼ Ze (zzz ay/eh)
ゾ Zo (zzz…oh)
The only problem is between ジ and ヂ both of which are pronounced Ji (like the letter G). I call them problems because, unless you’re familiar with the spelling, you may end up using the wrong Ji.
E.g.: 縮む might become ちじむ instead of the correct ちぢむ
The Japanese “z” sound is closer to the teeth, which might explain why.
I feel like it’s more like Tz. 全部 is Tzenbu
I can’t answer your question but I will say that the Japanese Ji, Chi, Shi (じ、ち、し) do not sound like the English J, Ch, or Sh equivalents to me, but nobody will believe me.
It’s a curious phenomenon that apparently varies by region. Where I live じ and ぢ sound like ji and ず and づ sound like dzu (more or less identical to each other but aight variations depending on the word).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotsugana
雑誌 and 全部’s z sounds are not pronounced ts in standard Japanese, or any of the dialects I’m familiar with.
I don’t doubt that they might be said like that in some minor dialect somewhere though.
Where did you learn that?
Its pronnaunced DZ ざ=dza
日本語
You’re hearing a bit of affrication, ie pronouncing it like [dz]. Common but honestly? You don’t need to imitate it.
Might explain to you why kids is borrowed as キッズ but still pronounced pretty much the same as english, though.
And why ず and づ are merged in modern japanese.