I was reviewing anki cards and 洗濯機 came up with an example phrase. The thing is that when the word is by itself the audio says sentakuki, but then in the example phrase
新しい洗濯機を買いました it is pronounced sentakki. I chequed with google translator and it does the same, it seems that it changes when you ad an adjective before it. My question would be, why does that happen and is there a way to know when I’m in front of one of these words that change the sound even though is written exactly the same way? Or should i just learn these by brute force.
3 comments
It’s both. せんたくき might be better for one-off words or while speaking properly.
せんたっき might be easier to say in a sentence or in casual speech.
I remember watching a variety show several years ago and this issue came up. One of the comedians said he pronounces it like せんたっき and was told that he starts to sound like an おっさん, meaning an elderly male. It is especially common among men to shorten words.
KU+Kx is so frequently shortened to KKx, that you should simply expect it.
Some words have made the full change to the KKx version like 国会 where *only* the shortened version is considered correct, but (basically) all instances of KU+Kx can be said KKx.
This has been borne out by taping natural Japanese speech, and even those people who insist that the KKx version is incorrect use it.
This is another case whether the Google IME shines because it allows input of there KKx versions even though they are not recognized as proper.
And yeah Sentakki is one that Google’s IME will let you input that (for instance) MacOS IME will not.