What causes accents?English is made up from about 300 different one-syllable sounds. Every word in our language can be produced by some combination of these 300 sounds. For native speakers, until we learn another language, this is our only concept of language sounds. We are, of course, physically capable of making all sorts of sounds besides these, but our idea of what sounds fall into the language category is limited to those 300 or so. Other languages, however, developed totally independently from English. Japanese, for example, is comprised of only about 100 different sounds. These sounds do not necessarily match up with any of the 300 sounds that form English. That is to say, the creators of English and Japanese didn't conspire together to make sure some of the sounds would be the same. It's important to remember that many sounds might be similar, but the odds of two totally independent languages being built out of the exact same sounds are low. Accents occur when speakers use a foreign conception of what constitutes language sounds with a different language. In other words, they use the sounds that form their own language to approximate the sounds of another language. This is a very important point. No two languages match up exactly in terms of monosyllabic elements. When the approximation is a large one, the accent sounds strong. When the approximation is close to the real sound, the accent is slight. An example of this is a Japanese person who says "haro-" for "hello." She is "translating" the sounds that the English word "hello" is built out of into sounds that she's familiar with--ones that make up Japanese. That's why it doesn't sound quite right. She's approximating the correct pronunciation.
How to get rid of your accent in JapaneseAmericans do a lot of things that sound bad in Japanese, and I've listed here some of the major things you can do to clean up your pronunciation. The first points are so basic that many of you will probably roll your eyes, but the final points get into some of the nittier gritties. Here we go:
R's: There is no such thing as a soft r in Japanese!This point is so basic, I'm almost embarrassed to include it here, but I've heard way too many foreigners saying they come from America, pronouncing it just like in English. They're like, "America-jin desu," and everyone is thinking, "Yes, we know." Japanese r's are "hard," that is, there is definite contact between the tip of your tongue and the roof of your mouth. It's like the brief contact your tongue makes with the roof of the mouth in the English word "ladder." For those familiar with Spanish, the Japanese r sounds similar to the Spanish non-rolled r. To fine tune it further, just listen closely to and copy native speakers. But even if you're not perfect, it will sound infinitely better than using "soft" r's.
Clean up those vowels!Japanese has only five vowel sounds. They always sound the same, and they aren't inflected at all. In other words, they don't make strange sound transformations in the middle of a syllable. English does this a lot. For a good example of this, see my comment on o a bit futher down the page. Look at your pronunciation of a. It should be nice and open, like the doctor likes to hear at checkups. Now say the Japanese word Amerika. Listen carefully to your pronunciation of both of those a's. Are you saying, "Uh-me-ri-kuh," like we pronounce it in English? There is no such sound as "uh" in Japanese. It sounds strange at first, but be sure to open your mouth wide and pronounce every a correctly. Pay special attention to a's that occur at the end of words or in places directly preceding syllables that English speakers tend to emphasize. Say watashi. Are you saying "wuh-TA-shi"? These are the kind of things to look out for. Be sure that you never pronounce i as in "pit." That sound is very foreign, and it sounds awful in Japanese. The major problem with English speakers' pronunciation of u is they tend to add a subtle "uh" toward the end. Say the word "ooh" a few times and you should hear it sneak in at the end. The secret to removing this is to stop the air flow before you move your lips. Keep 'em frozen until the sound has stopped! E isn't usually much of a problem for English speakers, except, ironically, when they try too hard to remove their foreign accent. Hearing that the Japanese e is similar to the Spanish pronunciation, many foreigners mistakenly inflect their e's with an i sound. They make it sound almost like the letter "A." For those who want to argue on this point, I'll concede it is true that even without this inflection, there are two possible e sounds that are very minutely different. But it is my opinion that the Japanese e is flatter than many people realize. Just a nice flat pronunciation, as in "get," does the job perfectly. Also, contrary to what some teachers, who will remain nameless, have taught myself and others, the combo ei is not equivalent to the pronunciation of the English letter "A." The i is merely extending the sound of the e, just as u can extend o without giving any change of sound to it. To test your pronunciation of the Japanese o, say the English word "no" out loud. If you listen very carefully, you'll notice that you not only say an o sound, but you inflect it toward an u (as in "ooh") at the end. You can see evidence of this in that your lips change shape as you pronounce the sound. If you don't believe me, look in a mirror and say it again until you can see it and hear it, because you definitely do it. Now, try to say only the o sound without inflecting at all toward u. One way to make sure you're saying it right is to note whether or not your lips change shape. If you're doing it right, they should stay exactly the same. When you succeed, it should sound very foreign, since we never do that in English. But it sounds great in Japanese! If you pay really close attention to your vowel sounds and try your hardest to clean them up, you're 80% of the way to really good Japanese. It's difficult to do, since we're so ingrained to pronounce things a certain way. But it's worth it to shed your gaijin-ness. You'll get more respect, you'll progress more fully with the language, and you'll be starting to speak real Japanese, not just gaijin no nihongo. There are a few more points that might help you.
D's: Harder than your average dThis isn't a really big point, but it's noticeable. In English, our d pronunciation tends to be very light. For instance, in the word "ladder," the tongue just lightly brushes the roof of the mouth. This actually sounds very close to the Japanese r! When I lived in Japan, one of my host sisters got a kick out of hearing me say the word kedo because it sounded like I was saying kero, the sound a frog makes in Japanese (ribbit)! How did I clean up my pronunciation and come to terms with my non-frogness? The key lies in the d. When you pronounce the d sound, put your tongue further forward than we usually do in English. Don't use just the tip, either. Take the whole front end and give it a good smash near where the roof of your mouth connects with the teeth. Now you can let forth a really heavy-duty d. It should almost come out with a thump. Just to make clear where your tongue should be, if you were to lower it a little further toward the teeth, you would make a th sound. For practice, say the phrase karada dakara da. This is great for your r pronunciation too. Ask for fine tuning tips from your Japanese friends.
Tsu's, su's, and all other u's: Get rave reviewsThis actually relates more to the pronunciation of the vowel u, but I thought I'd give it special emphasis here. I hear a lot of foreigners really draw their lips together when they pronounce these sounds. Sui should not sound like "(chop) suey". The reality is that Japanese people don't close their lips as much as we do for these sounds. And as always, remember: Do not move your lips until you enter the next syllable! Keep 'em frozen for the length of the sound!
The other g: Its existence made manifestThis would be fairly hard to explain through a web site, but if nothing else, I want to make you aware that there exist two pronunciations for the g sound. There are the normal "hard" sounds (like in the English "goat"), and then there are the "soft" g's, which are sometimes written in specialty literature with maru instead of ten-ten on the k sounds. The soft g is pronounced like in going on. It's really nasalized. It shows up almost every time for the particle ga, and in a lot of other words. You'll just have to listen carefully for further details. In summary, I would just recommend being aware of the sounds you are making. Be very careful with your vowels. Try not to inflect them like in English. That's 80% of the battle. The other 20%? Just copy native speakers like crazy! |