Japanese Phonetics Episode 44—LIVE (now with native recordings!)
Added 2018-06-28 01:00:01 +0000 UTCBibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page
Good morning Patrons! The forty-forth episode of Japanese Phonetics, now updated with native recordings, is live! In this lesson we look at the consonants t, ch, and ts, comparing and contrasting them with various English sounds, as well as the Japanese し and じ.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns with regards to this lesson, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support, and good luck with your Japanese studies!
Best from Beppu,
Dōgen
Comments
Hi, Anton. Thanks for your question! While the difference may seem imperceptible in most circumstances, I'd highly recommend against the English "T" position. Not only is it technically incorrect, but the “N” sounds in Japanese are also denti-alveolar and use the same tongue position. The further one differs from the correct pronunciation, the more negative downstream consequences there can be, even if the two seem the same in isolation. Hope this helps!
Dogen
2025-06-16 23:50:30 +0000 UTCI spent a long time recording myself and now came to the conclusion that I can produce the exact same [ta] sound independent on if I put my tongue on my teeth or my alveolar ridge, i.e. if I use the English or Japanese tongue position. In the video, the two versions sound different because the tongue is curled too much in the English version (I think the pitch is also different but not 100% sure). So I think the tongue position does not really matter that much, only the curling of the tongue and aspiration. Have you noticed something similar, or am I missing something?
Anton
2025-06-14 13:01:37 +0000 UTCYes, but I believe in those English words the tongue position is at the alveolar ridge (just tip of tongue touching alveolar ridge), as opposed to the denti-alveolar (tip of tongue touching back of teeth and blade of tongue touching alveolar ridge).
Dogen
2025-05-23 00:41:15 +0000 UTCA number of online resources approximate the [ts] in つ as akin to "zz" in pizza or "ts" in "cats". Do you believe this to be accurate?
Gargan
2025-05-20 05:51:33 +0000 UTCHi, Elijah. JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. In this video Dōgen refers to it as the "S position". I went back to Lesson 42 (https://www.patreon.com/posts/japanese-episode-18897056) to see what he says about the tongue position for S. If you watch this lesson from about the 1:00 mark, he says that the literature describes it both ways. I realize that's not the clearest answer, but I hope it helps!
Dogen
2024-07-17 03:06:17 +0000 UTCHello! I'm still a bit confused on つ. During the sibilant part of the sound, is air passing between the *tip* of the tongue and the palate or the *blade* of the tongue and the palate?
Elijah Lubben
2024-07-10 16:18:28 +0000 UTCHi, Caleb JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. I think the comparison you're looking for would be around the 4:00 mark in lesson 42 looking at し and around the 6:00 mark in lesson 44 where Dōgen is talking about ち. I hope this helps!
Dogen
2023-07-10 07:50:25 +0000 UTCQuestion on ち: is the initial tongue shape any different than し? I’m pulling the tip of my tongue up towards a [t] position to pronounce the stop, and wondering if that is correct.
Caleb K
2023-06-29 01:48:28 +0000 UTCHi Matt. This does occur sometimes, as the 'i' and 'u' vowels often get partially or fully devoiced at the end of a sentence. In 'hitotsuzutsu' the 'u' of the first 'tsu' should almost always be voiced, as it comes before 'z', which is a voiced sound, but because the second 'tsu' comes at the end of the word it would be OK to devoice this one, at least partially as I just mentioned. Perhaps you're dealing with a devoicing issue? Incidentally the 'i' in 'hi' should also be devoiced here. Remember as well that the 'zu' is the accent in this compound. Cheers!
Dogen
2020-06-30 12:27:12 +0000 UTCThank you for reply. If I may ask a follow up question about this issue, I have noticed that some Japanese tend to pronounce つ completely unvoiced as in [ts] if it is at the end of a sentence. What do you think of this phenomenon and how does it relate to pronouncing 一つずつ? Again, many thanks!
Matt
2020-06-30 12:18:39 +0000 UTCHi Matt. I've never personally had any difficulty with this sound, so it's a bit hard to give solid advice on this matter, but it may be worth pointing out that the English T and the Japanese T are created in different places. I'm not sure where the T sound in your native language is made, but as this lesson says, the Japanese T is said with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper front teeth, and the blade of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge; making sure it's in this position, as opposed to the English T, which is further back along the roof of the mouth, may help when alternating between the つ and ず sound. Hope that this helps!
Dogen
2020-06-30 11:18:43 +0000 UTCI find it really difficult to pronounce 一つずつ, especially the going back and forth between つ and ず. Do you have any tips re this? I am not a native English speaker, and would be interested to know if this is easy for English speakers. Thank you!
Matt
2020-06-30 11:13:24 +0000 UTCInteresting, wasn't aware of that!
Dogen
2020-02-03 15:19:59 +0000 UTCThe pronunciation of つ is one that I found easier since I grew up learning Hebrew; the Hebrew letter צ is also [ts] (though in some regional dialects, it can be a pharyngealized [tsˤ] or [sˤ])
RedAgent14
2020-01-30 17:34:38 +0000 UTCHi André! Thanks for the comment! I don't currently, but I'll be making a video on the R sounds in the relatively near future, so stay tuned! Incidentally your English is great! :) Thanks for your support!
Dogen
2018-07-12 10:39:21 +0000 UTCHello, Dogen! Do you have any video (or going to do) talking about the sound of the "r"s ? I'm very curious of what you have to teach about it. I'm brazilian by the way, sorry about any mistake here. Thank you for everything!
André Guttierrez
2018-07-12 03:07:15 +0000 UTCThank you very much Mark! Hope that you enjoy the other videos as well!
Dogen
2018-06-29 12:30:06 +0000 UTCGreat video Dogen. This is the first in the phonetics series that I've seen, so looks like I'll need to catch up on 43 more.
thisisMarkymoo
2018-06-29 05:47:56 +0000 UTCYou've got great ears, Nathan! I had to re-learn the T sound, as well as the tsu sound during my study abroad term in Tokyo haha. No worries! Glad to hear that you're getting so much out of the series. Thanks for the support!
Dogen
2018-06-28 23:07:56 +0000 UTCIt's my pleasure, Tobias. Thank you very much for your support!
Dogen
2018-06-28 23:06:32 +0000 UTCWhen you described the tongue placement for the Japanese "t" sound vs the English "t" sound, I immediately tried saying something with a T in Japanese... and it turns out I've already been doing it correctly! Apparently I just picked it up through listening and imitating. So I was feeling really proud of myself! But then you mentioned that tsu uses the same initial position... and I _haven't_ been doing that correctly. Ha ha. Thanks as always for your videos! They're are always super useful and informative!
Nathan Vegdahl
2018-06-28 22:42:15 +0000 UTCHi Dogen just started a week ago to watch your videos, and just wanted to thank you for teaching all that stuff.
Tobias Tölle
2018-06-28 20:36:37 +0000 UTC
