This advice sheet provides you with strategies that can help make your learning of Japanese pronunciation as effective as possible: find ones which work well for you.

Planning

• Decide what areas of Japanese Pronunciation you want to work on. See Advice Sheets JP3 and JP6. If you are not sure what to focus on, you can record yourself talking and pass the tape to an Language Commons Adviser.
• Work out a learning plan and set yourself an objective that you want to achieve.

Learning

• Just listen first. Don’t try to pronounce until you can hear the feature clearly.
• Listen to each sound or word and then repeat it. Then rewind and check with the original before moving on.
• Try speaking at the same time as the speaker on the tape (using the tapescript). This can help give you a feel for the way the speaker uses different pitch levels and rhythm.
• Memorise short sentences, record your pronunciation of them and compare with the original.
  Practise an exercise many times (unless you find this boring) or do many exercises from different books on the same Japanese pronunciation feature. Repeated practice is important if you are to improve your pronunciation.
• When you are ready, try listening and repeating without looking at the book.

Transfer (Applying what you have learnt to other situations)

• Find a recording of spoken Japanese with a transcript (e.g. news, movie, song) and using the transcript, locate a section that contains the Pronunciation feature you’ve been learning. Listen to the recording and see if you can hear the Pronunciation features.
• Find a recording with a transcript, but don’t look at the transcript yet. Transcribe a short section (e.g. a sentence or two) – i.e. write it down word for word. Then check to see whether you heard the key Pronunciation features correctly.
• Identify short phrases that you want to say (e.g. greetings) or have difficulty saying which contain the pronunciation feature that you are working on. Practise saying them to yourself and try to bring them into your conversation with others.

Evaluation

• Do the same Pronunciation exercises on “Kurobi” (CD-ROM) again after a period of time, and compare scores.
• Tape yourself speaking, and listen to the recording. Identify the parts that you think could be improved. Then record the same speech again. Can you notice any improvement?
• Record yourself speaking at the beginning of a period of study. At the end (e.g. 3 months later) record yourself again, perhaps talking on the same topic, and compare.
• Record yourself speaking and ask someone else (e.g. Japanese-speaking friend, teacher or Language Commons Adviser) to comment on it. Or ask them to comment on your progress after e.g. a semester.
• At the end of a period of learning, think about whether you have increased your: knowledge/ ability to hear or speak/ confidence.
• If you are unsure about how to pronounce new words, you can check it with the Japanese-Chinese CD-ROM Dictionary at the Language Commons.

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.