Speaking and pronunciation
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Speaking and pronunciation · Page 47
Talking About Stress and Difficult Feelings in Japanese
You can describe your weekend in Japanese and you cannot tell your doctor that you have not been sleeping.
7 min readExplaining Your Specialist Field in Japanese
You have fifteen years in your field and in Japanese you sound like someone describing it from the outside.
7 min readWorking a Room in Japanese at a Networking Event
You have the card exchange rehearsed and then you are standing with a drink, next to a stranger, with nothing after it.
7 min readSpeaking Japanese in Voice Chat and Online Games
Voice chat in a game is one of the few places a learner can speak Japanese for two hours without arranging anything.
6 min readThe Japanese N Sound and Why It Changes
The single kana for n is pronounced at least four different ways, and none of them is the n you already know.
7 min readJapanese Vowels Are Purer Than Yours
Japanese has five vowels and they are all easier than yours, which is precisely why they are hard.
6 min readJapanese Consonants That Learners Merge Together
Japanese consonants are mostly familiar, which is why the handful that are not slip past unnoticed for years.
6 min readJapanese Pitch Accent Across a Whole Sentence
You learned the pitch pattern of each word, and in a sentence none of them behave the way the dictionary said.
6 min readSaying English Loanwords the Japanese Way
You said a word you have known your whole life and nobody understood it, because in Japanese it is a different word now.
6 min readPronouncing Japanese Names and Places Correctly
Getting somebody's name wrong is the one pronunciation error that is genuinely worth apologising for.
6 min readFixing Japanese Rhythm With a Metronome
Japanese rhythm is the single biggest thing standing between you and being easily understood, and it is trainable with a free app and ten minutes a day.
6 min readHow Long Does It Take to Fix Japanese Pronunciation?
Pronunciation changes on a different timescale from vocabulary, which is why it feels like it is not changing at all.
6 min readPractical guides
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