 Hello everyone, I'm your host, Scott Perry, and this is Let's Talk Hawaii, live today from Tokyo, Japan. This program is about English pronunciation, communication, and interesting things in people. You can see me here every other Tuesday at 3 p.m. Hawaii time, and to make sure. So I'm in a different time zone right now, so a little bit different. Today's topic is, listen more carefully to speak more clearly. Hmm, that's what it is. Well, it's true because when you are learning English from Japan, you are learning basically English words in the Japanese style. So I know oftentimes I'm very curious Japanese people come to America and they may live here for 10 years, 15 years, or longer, yet they will still say, paro, when they pick up the phone, or thank you. After 10 years of hearing, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, nanoni, paro, it's not you. You have to realize that's not the same, it's not the same. So I think it's similar to American people going to Japan and then saying things like karaoke. Well, we've learned that it is karaoke, but in Japan, it's called karaoke. But karaoke, karaoke, karaoke, even if you hear karaoke, you can't hear karaoke. So we have to just listen more carefully and try to talk. Now, I am here in Japan on a business trip. I have several seminars that I had to do and some workshops. I have to go straight to another workshop, a seminar. I have some pictures of a recent seminar that I did actually two days ago. Here's one. Well, that's me in Tokyo. And there's another slide of, there we go. And that's me right there with another assistant speaker. But I had to speak to Rokpekunin. Rokpekunin atsumari masudande, to listen to English. Let's see, I have one more picture of the group. And there's my Tokyo. So Rokpekunin dijonandiskudo, 600 seats. They set up 600 seats for everyone and they needed to add maybe 30 or 40 more seats. But the topic was similar, how to improve your English and your pronunciation. Mie san ga yorokonde de tomoimasu, it was very fun. Some people ask me, are you nervous to talk to so many people? Sora wa yappari ichiba okina crowd de tomoimasu ka, that was my largest crowd in a long time. Actually my largest crowd for one topic. But there are Rokpekunin nandiskudo, yappari amari kii shitsunai. Jibun no hanaseru koto dake fokushite and you don't notice the people. Actually if you focus on the people, then you might become nervous when you're speaking. So many people are nervous about speaking to large crowds, but focus on your topic. Scan the room, it was not a problem, so thank you for that question anyway. And so today, listening more carefully, let's see, oh, before I get to that topic, I was starting to feel a little homesick for Hawaii. It's been raining here every day. Asakara yoru no asakara bak rain. I haven't seen this much rain in several years since I've been back. But it was just raining all day, it's raining right now. I got two umbrellas. And so I saw a, I was looking for some food, gohanasagashi mite. I saw a poster and I said, oh, this is Hawaii. So this is what I found when I was walking. It looks like a very large Hawaiian burger. De, ano, nihonjin datta, nihon wo wakarun datta ra, 5,990 yen, yaku, ma, 15 dollars. That's a big 15 dollar Hawaiian burger desu ne. Ano oishikata desu. It was very good. So after eating that, I could feel like I was in Hawaii. But it's not quite the same case. Anyway, it was good enough for me. Now, speaking English and speaking better, there's a connection to listening. Jouzu ni kikoetara jouzu ni hanaseru idea ga arimasu. But oftentimes, students are not really listening. Kikoeteru kedo not really listening to the details. So it's important that you focus on details of sound. Living in America for several years, you should no longer say, haro. You should notice everyone else is saying, hello. They're moving their mouth differently. They're making a different sound. So as you're speaking, you want to make sure, did you say what you heard? Sune dake datta ra, you will improve your pronunciation. You will improve your communication. Mune keijin ga yoku na, kikoeteru oto wo maneshite kurasaru. Maneshou to omoenai kara, hatsun ga, mou ka, mune keijin ga, kikiyari yakutai ni kui. Ano, mo, juunen mai, nijunen mai, chūkaku no toki toka, kouku no toki, yocchi e no toki toka, kaisuke demo, you learned the word and the meaning. And it's not the American sound, but it is the Japanese in your sound. Yeah, chikai kamushii no nai kedo, ah, de onaji ja nai. But when you say it or hear it, ah, kono oto de boatte dasu. Honteni, mune san na nani yukteru no? What is everyone saying? If you actually record, slow down, and listen carefully, you will find there's many different sounds that you're skipping. There's many changes in sound. And chimoki no mo nai wa, na, tashi ga nai kiichi ni datta re wa someone to ask, if you don't have a person to ask, dosho mo nai. So, American people cannot say every word perfectly. If we cannot read it, or if we don't know it, we cannot actually be confident in saying it. Arigawa. Nomu dake de, arigawa, shimu nai kotoba datta ra, to ionde, to iba, kusuri no ura ni. Nanda, nanda, nanda, nanda. If I've never seen that, I will not be confident that I'm correct. I, but many times students will just read and say what they see. That's not going to work. It doesn't work for native speakers. So, if I create a new word, atarashii kotoba tsukete, tatoiba nanda ga nanda, I can't show you on the screen, but I create a new word. I show you. It's a long word. No one can say it properly except me, because no one knows which sounds I'm giving it. I create the word. I create the sounds. But as soon as we hear it, we can copy it because we focus on which sounds are being used. So basically, we are copying what we hear. Just looking at a word and reading it will not help you. Oftentimes, my students say, nanda, nanda, nanda. What did he say? I will say, nanda, whatever. And the first thing I do is copy what I hear. I copy what I hear. I copy what I hear. I copy what I hear. And the first word is, how do you spell it? Goitkaku. They want to write it down so they can see it. I say, don't worry about the spelling. It doesn't really matter. It's a sound. Oto dakara, mimi otsukatte. Mochiro kitte, kikasete, kite. And remember the sound. Don't remember the writing, because English writing is not always equal to the sound. We have the word phone, P-H-O-N-B-Y. We have many words that probably would be easier if they were written differently. But we borrow words from many cultures. We just, when I'm on a scotch out, we just use their words. So, if you don't have someone to give you a sample voice, you need to use something like Google Translate. You can type in the word on Google Translate, and there's a microphone. You click the mic, and you can hear the word like telephone. It's a pretty good voice. Nama no koe ga ichiban inan desu kedo. Google's voices is very accurate. So, if you can hear the sound, you have a chance to copy. So not to me, I'm going to show you, a little bit later, I'm going to show you some words, but not yet. We're going to go over some basic words that are often mistaken. Now, Google Translate, there's another, there are a couple more online sound creators. You can type in a word, even a paragraph or a sentence. It'll speak it and read it to you. So, don't be afraid to say, I don't know what that is. I don't know, because I'm not sure of the sound. I know the word, I know the meaning. I've heard it many times, but I'm not sure. It's okay. So, how do you say this? Very important, not how you spell it, not what's the meaning, but how do you say this? You got it that up? If you can hear it, keep it that up? Not it. There's a lot of technical things, like your tongue position, your breathing, many things that I teach, but basically, just listen carefully. Did they go up and down? Did they go flat? Is the word broken in two or three places? Very important points. Then you copy. Very simple. Now, be careful of Oxford, Oxford dictionaries. They're fine dictionaries, but sometimes they have two different pronunciations. English and American English. So, be careful and make sure you are getting the American English sound. So, I just recommend Webster's dictionaries. If there's an audio, Webster's has an audio check as well. Google Translate works fine. Webster's, be careful of more non-American English audio system. All right, go Christchart. My cause over there, you might get the British sound or some of you guys, anyway. Listen more carefully to speak more clearly. Now, oh, when you're also listening, be careful of computer voices that are not really human. Don't copy that. Good morning, how are you doing today? So, you were looking at that earlier, I'm not managing that side. That's not human voice, you want the human voice. Or a really good friend who speaks well? Ask them, what is the sound? Now, I'd like to look at a few words here. I have a slide that shows a couple of different words here. Now, these words are often mistaken by Japanese people because they were taught differently. It's not that they're wrong. It's not mistaken, but the way they're taught is different. So, the sound they're taught is different. So, the first one we have, and this is very interesting, but 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, even if you live in California, you can't say California properly. Most of you cannot say that. The sound you learned was California, California, California, those are all Japanese sounds that are being used to make English, but it's not actually English. So, if you listen to a native speaker, you will hear cala-orn-ya. It's not the same, cala-orn-ya. How many parts is that? Cala-orn-ya, that's four parts. Japanese has six parts in Japanese. American English has four parts. So, you want to be careful. First sound is not cal, it is cal. Second sound is not bi, it is la. Now, these letters are not there. It could be written different to sound more like the actual English sound, but it's written like this. But if you close your eyes, forget the word, and say cala-orn-ya. If you hear that, copy that. Cal, you can say that. La, very easy. Orn, the most difficult one. Orn, finally. Nya, nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya, Japanese sounds. Ya, nya-nya, California, let's practice that. California, that's it. It's very simple. If you can say it that way, you probably sound like someone who lives there. The next one is bi-kozu, bi-kozu. Now that's what you learned, and that's what you're used to saying. Kikyokuwa, bi-kaz. The actual sound is bi-kaz. So if you look at it, you can see a u, that are u, but we actually do not focus on that sound. You know, don't focus. We skip that, bi-kaz. That slight u sound is a r, kaz, bi-kaz. Omo ichiban in ii-kata wa, izi ii-kata wa, bi-kaz. There's two parts. Now, let's see if I can know. Now the next sound is gu, gu. You know that sound to be good. We will never say gu. We will not make that shape. We will not make that sound. We will not say it that short if you notice. No one who's a native speaker will do that, unless it's on purpose. Now, we're gonna have a different mouth shape. Good, good, niko niko shinagara, good, good. So gu, that's your first mistake. It's closing your lips. Just keep smiling. Good, very good, good, good, good, good, good, good. It's more of a tongue sound than a lip sound, good. Now, the next word is not a word. It's actually several words. TH-based sounds. Where TH-ka haite-sa, beginning TH, middle TH, side of the TH, dochi demo onaji nan desu kedo. Be careful because it seems to be, it seems to be more difficult than I thought. I recently did, I did about 100 level checks at the seminar very quickly. I did about 130 just a couple of days before I came. Hotono mingasa nga kiiechi no monba ga arumasute. Hotono ryu wa erodasa zin. So they're not sticking their tongue out. They're not raising their lip. So, that, this, ze, sa, zte, those, tongue is in the mouth and there's an S sound. Those, za, to, ze, janakute, bedogashite, that, they, those, you have to raise your lip up a lip and make the sound that, that, za, to, that, za, to, that. So if you're a native English speaker and you want to learn how to copy Japanese English sound, try keeping your tongue in your mouth and saying that, that'd be za, to, this, those. It's actually difficult for us to do that. It's not, we're not used to that. But za, to, is the sound, that is the sound. Now, another word, vibrate, vibrate, vibrate. Why is this difficult while there's a V and no one raises their upper lip? Vibrate, two parts. So, kikutoki ni, hata nanko aru? Vibrate, because California vibrate is two clear parts. So, vi, and then rate. Vibrate, vibrate, vibrate janakute. Vibrate, labudii, labudii, the next word is labudii. That's how you learned it. The problem is the V again in the middle. That is not a bu sound, it is a bu sound. So, love, li, and li is often mistaken. And li is often mistaken. Rii, rii janakute. Complete the first part, second part is ni to negishinagara. Li, li, love li, those are very easy. The next one, yahari musukashii desyo. Nihon goya no diyu to garu, garu, gar and ru. In Japanese it's ga, easy to say, bu, a little bit difficult for Americans, but even for you, Japan. Girl, girl. We're gonna say, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, and then flip it to url. It's really tricky, and you may not master it here, but practice usually makes perfect. Girl, girl, it's not gonna be one sound, it's gonna kind of flip one part, but girl, it could be changes to like url. If you can say url, you can say this word, okay? Many people may have a problem with that. Now the next one, very common. Nihon goya no diyu to asakohan, nihon goya no diyu to rekvasta, pasta. Bu dekku is the first part. F-A-S-T, it sounds fast or fast, so rekvasta. I don't know what this word means. I'm gonna take a guess. It's an early thing to eat. It's like a break that is fast in the morning because farmers would make foods for us and they would take a break and they would eat fast and get back to farming. I'm wondering if it came from that. I don't know. Anybody knows? Should I have a thing to put aside? I should give this a break. Break fast? I don't know. Bu dekatsu no wa rekvist, rek, rek, ek, ek, rekvist. Okay, the fist. So this is your fist, rekvist. That's gonna be correct. You don't ever say rekvast. No one's gonna say fast. We're only gonna say fist, rekvist. Okay, so listen carefully. Listen to your friends, ask them. Say this word, rekvist, on to that. They really do not say fast. Of course not. Next one is, it's a preference, but I'm going to say, I'm gonna finish these quickly. Famili, zhanakute family. Righto, zhanakute, right. Okay, el zhanakute. On, zhanakute, bone. Marukuchi, bone. Okay? Bone is probably the most difficult. Bu, bu, bu, zhanakute, bone. Around closing sound. Bone. Okay. California, because good. Vibrate, lovely, girl, breakfast, family, two parts. Famili, nohoga, not families, okay, but family, nohoga, popular. Right and bone. Okay, those are our words for this episode and I appreciate you joining me and thank you for watching. Let's talk Hawaii from Japan today. I will see you next time in Honolulu, from Honolulu. Thanks for watching Think Tech Hawaii and have a great day.