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 58
Japanese for a Working Holiday in Japan
A working holiday gives you a year in Japan and no classroom to hide in. The Japanese you need is small and practical: read a job ad, make one phone call, survive a ten-minute interview, and then speak every shift until the language stops feeling foreign.
16 min readJapanese Pitch Accent Patterns for Everyday Words
You do not need to memorise the pitch of every word. Most everyday Japanese falls into a handful of predictable groups, and once you can hear where the drop lands, those groups take care of thousands of words.
15 min readJapanese Mora Timing: The Rhythm That Makes You Sound Natural
Japanese is not spoken in syllables. It is spoken in beats of equal length, and the learners who are easiest to understand are the ones who give every beat its time.
14 min readJapanese Long Vowels and Double Consonants Explained
In Japanese, holding a vowel one beat longer or pausing before a consonant is not an accent. It is a different word, and a listener hears the difference instantly.
15 min readHow to Pronounce the Japanese R Sound
The Japanese r is neither the English r nor an l, and it is definitely not a rolled r. It is one quick tap, and most English speakers already make it without knowing.
15 min readJapanese Intonation: Questions, Emotion, and Emphasis
Your words can be correct and your accent can be neat, and a sentence can still sound foreign because the tune over the whole line is English. This guide teaches the Japanese tune.
14 min readJapanese Contracted Speech: Chau, Toku, Nakya, and More
The Japanese you hear in real conversations is shorter than the Japanese in your textbook. The same grammar is there; it has simply been squeezed. This guide shows what got squeezed and when you may squeeze it too.
14 min readKansai Dialect Basics for Learners of Japanese
Kansai-ben is the Japanese you hear in Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, and in a large share of comedy. Learn to recognise its best-known features now so a friendly wakarahen never leaves you stranded.
15 min readJapanese Sentence-Ending Particles: Yo, Ne, Na, Kana
The last syllable of a Japanese sentence tells the listener how you feel about what you just said. Learn what ne, yo, na and kana do and your Japanese stops sounding like a printed page.
16 min readJapanese Speaking Speed and Natural Pauses
Learners who want to sound fluent usually try to talk faster. Native speakers do not sound natural because they are fast; they sound natural because they pause in the right places and never in the wrong ones.
15 min readDevoiced Vowels in Japanese: Why Desu Sounds Like Des
Textbooks write desu and masu, but Tokyo speakers say something that sounds like des and mas. The vowel has not vanished. It has been whispered, and hearing the difference is the key to sounding natural.
15 min readHow to Make Friends in Japanese: From Small Talk to Plans
Friendships in Japan rarely begin with a bold introduction to a stranger. They grow out of a shared activity, a few repeated exchanges, and one person being brave enough to suggest a concrete plan. This guide gives you the lines for each of those steps.
17 min readPractical guides
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