Why study pronunciation?

Chinese people often say it’s not necessary to learn Japanese pronunciation because a lot of Chinese characters are used in written Japanese. To some extent, it is true that Chinese people have a great advantage in understanding Japanese because of this. As a matter of fact, scribbling messages in Chinese characters was a good means of communication before the modern era, when Japanese had a good knowledge of Chinese classics. Even now learning pronunciation may not be necessary if you just go to Tokyo for a few days and read the names of train stations. However, knowing Chinese characters is not equal to knowing the Japanese language. As a matter of fact, learning the Japanese pronunciation is essential in understanding Japanese. For example,

Reading Japanese: it is essential because words written in Chinese may have completely different meanings from those of Chinese (e.g. 怪我 “kega” means “to get hurt” whereas in Chinese it means “to blame me”), or one word written alike in Chinese characters may have several ways of reading (e.g. 何人 can be read as “nan-nin” meaning “how many people”, or “nani-jin” used to ask someone’s nationality.

Writing Japanese: it is essential because Japanese use two more types of writing other than “kanji”, namely “hiragana” and “katakana,” both of which represent the pronunciation. If you don’t know correct pronunciation, you cannot use them properly, and thus you cannot process Japanese properly with a computer as it may not recognize what you want to write.

Listening to Japanese: it is essential because Japanese and Chinese, whether it’s Putonghua or Cantonese, have different sound systems, and without knowing the Japanese pronunciation, you cannot understand spoken Japanese.

Speaking Japanese: it is essential to pronounce words correctly to get by easily. Japanese sounds are relatively easy, but Cantonese speakers tend to have difficulty in pronouncing particular sounds, which may cause misunderstanding (See Advice Sheets called “Common Pronunciation Problems for Cantonese Speakers).

Which type of pronunciation to study?

Japanese is spoken by some one hundred million people in Japan. Although there are a lot of dialects within the Japanese language, it is “Tokyo accent” which is considered standard. Just like the standard type of British English is used in BBC programmes, “Tokyo accent” is used in public broadcasting and learners will also hear this in audiotapes attached to Japanese learning coursebooks.

The aim of this leaflet

This introductory leaflet is a guide to our advice sheets for Japanese pronunciation learning. It provides a brief description of the advice sheets, so that you can decide which ones are useful for you and what is available in the Language Commons.

Advice sheets in the Language Commons

If you have decided to improve your Japanese pronunciation but do not know how to start, take a look at the following leaflets which give you advice on various aspects of learning pronunciation.

• Selecting materials for Japanese pronunciation (JP2)
  This advice sheet introduces you to the materials on pronunciation available in the Language Commons and suggests ways to select materials for your own study.
• Learning Japanese writing systems “hiragana”, “katakana” and “roma-ji” (JP3)
  Learning the Japanese writing system is an important element in learning Japanese pronunciation. Unlike English, we don’t use the IPA phonetic symbols to learn the Japanese sound system. Instead, we use two types of the Japanese writing system called “hiragana” and “katakana” and/or the romanized system called “roma-ji”. These are transliterate, i.e. representative of each Japanese sound, and used in any Japanese learning materials and dictionaries. Learners are advised to know at least one system as it enables you to pronounce unfamiliar words by consulting a dictionary. By familiarising yourself with those systems, you would be able to improve your pronunciation faster.
• Strategies (JP4)
  This advice sheet helps you think what strategies you can use to learn Japanese pronunciation.
• Glossary (JP5)
  This advice sheet provides a list of terms commonly used in explaining Japanese pronunciation. Brief explanations of these terms are also given.
• Common Japanese Pronunciation Problems for Cantonese Speakers (JP6)
  This advice sheet provides information on areas of Japanese pronunciation that Cantonese speakers may have difficulty with.

Note

This advice sheet is part of the Japanese Pronunciation series of leaflets supporting independent language learning, produced by the HKUST Center for Language Education Language Commons team. This leaflet was written by Shin KATAOKA in 2002. If you copy from this leaflet, please acknowledge the source. Thanks.