I listened to a LOT of j-pop and watched a lot of anime even before beginning my language learning journey, and I’ve been very careful on listening to pitch accent patterns since the time I started learning Japanese, so, so far for my overall level I’d say I have a pretty good ear for pitch and pronunciation. However, my subvocalization is pitiful. I’m a little afraid to read things that aren’t subtitles alongside native audio content like anime or youtube because of how poorly I pronounce things in my head, and I don’t want to build bad habits. Like some syllables that I pronounce fine out loud, just don’t even exist in my head other than a raw bastardization based on my native English tongue. What is the best solution for this? Should I just read out loud until my brain is better trained at re-producing these sounds?
4 comments
I have a tough time assessing my own pronunciation. So I had some Japanese teachers help me with pronunciation.
That said, this is the best vocational pronunciation guide I have found. The audio is downloadable for free as well as a few pages
https://www.ask-books.com/jp/978-4-87217-741-1/
This is an odd problem. Usually you get this problem in reverse. Yeah, probably just read aloud. Try not to stress so much about having pronunciation be perfect. The “building bad habits” “fossilized mistakes” panic is really overblown
My understanding is that research has found that the best way to learn to pronounce words from a foreign language properly is to say them in unison in a group of students. Just as a choir tends to find the right pitch better than some individual who has a hard time carrying a tune, the group tends to find the right pronunciation better than the individual who has a hard time saying it right, and when either scenario is in play, even the somewhat tone deaf or people who just can’t get the pronunciation right both tend to do better.
This might be way off base but it might help. I’m a quiet speaker and mumbler. An interview prep course forced us to record ourselves and listen back to it. I tried so hard to fix it before but nothing hit me harder than seeing it for myself. Try recording a video of yourself and watching it. It might be super cringe (I hate seeing and hearing myself lol) but it worked so well. Actually, I just googled it. Seems like a common method for improving pronunciation.