I don’t understand how consecutive vowels are pronounced

6 comments

1. Best advice is to listen to recorded speech and repeat what you hear. As you get better you’ll adjust.

   Each hiragana is pronounced with similar length ございます would be go-za-ee-ma-ss, but all together – go/za/ee/ma/ss

   はい does sound like “hi” as in “hi, how are you?”

   For げいしゃ, the combination of え and い often creates a long え sound, similar to “gay” but with out the final /i/ diphthong.

2. 1) “えい” is pronounced as “ええ.” Similarly, “おう” is pronounced like “おお”. That’s just a specific rule that you may or may not have been told about.

   2) “あい” is simply a diphthong—AKA, two or more vowel sounds mashed together. The reason “あい” sounds like “eye” is because the English word “eye” is just “ah” and “ee” elided together.

3. Depending on the speed, context, emotion in which one is speaking you may hear all of the following and more: go-zeye-mas, go-zah-ee-mas, go-zeye-maaaas. The same is true in English as well there are many ways to render the same word. In general words are pronounced with a smooth glide similar to go-zeye-mas and it’s best not to overthink it too much.

4. Hey! This is a good question. I’ll admit I’m still pretty new, but I remember going through this pain point a while back. Here’s what helped me understand how to vocalize the characters you’re having trouble with.

   For the character い – try to think of it as an “i” sound, not an “ee” sound like in the romanji.

   For ございます:

   Instead of “go-zeye-mas” – think of it as “go-zai-mas” – I believe you are mistranslating い　as an “ee” when it should be an “i” sound. Same with mistranslating ざ　- it should be “za” and not “ze”

   Seems to me like you’re having problems with “ai” or “ei” sounds. Try this:

   あ – “a” – a plain “a” sound.

   あい – “ai” – think as “ai” with emphasizing the “i” by bringing the tongue to the top of the mouth and closing the jaw.

   Example: あいだ / 間 / “aida” means between. Note that the same mouth movement happens during あい, then the next “syllable/mora” would be だ/da.

   —

   え- “e” – plain “e” sound, pronounced phonetically like “ehh”

   えい – “ei” – think “ei” – but also emphasize the “i” like previously by bringing the tongue to the top of the mouth and closing the jaw.

   Example: げいしゃ – Think of it as “gei-shya” broken down like げい / “gei” and しゃ / “sha”. You have the same mouth movement as えい　with “ei” and then pronouncing the compound しゃ as “sha”

   Really hope this helps. I’m in the same beginner boat as you. I would recommend you get more input from watching anime, TV shows, something that you enjoy. Right now, it seems that you may haven’t heard enough of the language to observe the nuances. It’s OK if you have to turn on subtitles and completely miss 99% of everything that’s being said. It’s just to get used to the language and becoming comfortable hearing it. The more you hear it, the easier it will be to pick up the accent when you start actively speaking more

5. You are trying to make sense of writing and pronunciations using English which is notoriously bad language at that. Japanese is perfect in that you will know exactly how a word is said from how it is written (minus pitch accent).

   * learn how to pronounce each mora
   * just say them one after another
   * vowels “merge”, you leave zero gap between them which leaves you with a smooth transition, same happens with other mora too

   The vowels are pronounced in a way that you can say aaaaaaaa… or ああああああ… constantly without pauses until your lungs are empty. In IPA あ is a, but English a is eɪ.

   Japanese texts translate in IPA to almost perfectly Romanji and are understandable to someone who does not use IPA:

   kono joɯnʲi miemasɯ

   , whereas English:

   wɛl, ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ tɛkst wɪl lʊk laɪk ðɪs

6. The English “hi” *is* “ha-ee”! Say it slowly enough and you may hear it that way more.