I’ve very recently begun studying Japanese, and following some recommendations I began by learning Hiragana. I’ve gotten to a point where I can read all the kana and recognize their romaji equivalents and would like to.move on to learning some vocabulary with this. The thing is that my goal is to be able to speak Japanese, not just read it. As such I think I should get to work on pronunciation as soon as possible.
I’ve heard that the best way to learn pronunciation is immersion, however I am studying by my self, know no Japanese speakers, and do not live in Japan.
I have no aspirations to reach fluency in a year like so many others here seem to be set on. That seems largely impossible for someone that doesn’t already speak a related language, and I’m also studying only in my spare time. However since I am taking my time with it I would like to do it right and put my limited time to good use. Hence why I’m interested in pronunciation as I’d rather build up good habits from the star, instead of having to unlearn potentially bad ones in the future.
1 comment
pronunciation has some components
* vowels and consonants
* de-voicing
* pitch
* rhythm
* speed
youtube has a million videos which help with Japanese vowels and consonants, that’s an easy search
dogen has a video on de-voicing, or you might just pick it up yourself
pitch is too big and hot of a topic and I suck at it so…uh, I hope someone else answers
rhythm and speed are not discussed much here and if you just want to read books, maybe you don’t need this yet.
I saw one or two videos on rhythm and it seems to be something that could become the next hot-topic. Speed I believe comes through just repetition and exposure.