Japanese Lesson: Pronunciation (and beginner's words)

A little nervous about this first lesson, I'm very new to this! I'd appreciate constructive criticism~ Also, sorry that I have to annotate everything instead of using titles on my videos, they get really glitchy. Hopefully further down the line I'll have some better software to edit these videos with :)

Other Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/QuirkyLifeBlog
Blog: http://culturequirk.org
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Email: culturequirk@gmail.com

Music is "Winter Chimes," Kevin MacLeod (http://www.incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons "Attribution 3.0" http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• culture
• quirk
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• quirkylife
• japan
• japanese
• lazy
• vlog
• blog
• language
• study
• learning
• method
• lesson
• pronunciation
• beginner
• words
• introduction

[teamusicchannel]

How come you pronounce that well?oO really surprising.

[CultureQuirk]

@teamusicchannel Thank you! Lots of speaking practice, and even more listening practice~

[Oty3d]

I'm glad to hear other peoples' interpretations.

I have heard a Japanese guy say de su with no devoice.

It was confusing.

[CultureQuirk]

@Oty3d Yeah I think I know what you're talking about, and it does get confusing as people speak very differently depending on which part of Japan they're from. I'm focusing on the "standard Japanese" accent - not to mention that even if some Japanese do put more stress on that "su," it still sounds different than stressing the "su" with an American accent, if that makes sense. So in general, I think it's easier to just try to devoice it, but these rules are definitely not 100% foolproof :)

[soyanutella]

I think you're a perfect teacher =P

[CultureQuirk]

@soyanutella Thank you so much!

[Xolin11]

I would add that the Japanese r sound is similar to the American L sound (omitted in the Japanese language) to help people develop the right sound.

[KamedaFamily]

awesome. you are the first American who didn't say koNIchiwa.

[compassglobal]

発音が素晴らしい～！！

[broncos162]

good lesson.....

[nodnarbr420]

Aw you're so cute!

[novaannbei]

for regular, everyday usage, the "su" in "desu" and such are not enunciated, which makes it sound more like "ss". but in formal japanese, like if you were to talk to someone your senior, you would pronnounce it much more clearly. like, i've heard people say "arigatou gozaiMASU" with the "su" actually sounding like "su" and not "ss".

for the r/l sound, you could explain it as somewhere in between rolling your tongue and letting your tongue glide right off the roof of your mouth.

good job! :)

[adshap8]

ナイス発音！

[Areldyb]

Having the music run continuously throughout the video was somewhat distracting, especially when trying to pay attention to the sounds-- consider using intro/outro music instead. Otherwise, excellent video!

[akirasugoineko]

Awesome video. Fast phased but in a good way. Thank you very much for making it easier to learn japanese . You rock!

[KaijuMasterX]

Great video! Your pronunciation is excellent too! :) When I started learning Japanese, I had already been well immersed in hearing the language so I was able to pick up on it pretty fast. I've started learning Mandarin more recently, but after so many years of Japanese the transition between the two languages hasn't been so easy lol. (It took me the longest time to change from the Japanese "r" sound to the Chinese "r" sound. Seriously it's the worst letter between languages!)