• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 09:50
CEST 15:50
KST 22:50
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3
Community News
Weekly Cups (August 24-30): Patches' balance mod takes over0New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!36Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week6Weekly Cups (August 10-16): SHIN doubles2GSTL Returns in 2026!45
StarCraft 2
General
SC4ALL II: SC2 Player Announcement 6/8 - Maru How would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches for SC2? Weekly Cups (August 24-30): Patches' balance mod takes over Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week Daily SC2 Player Grid - feedback wanted
Tourneys
PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament 2026 GSTL Announcement IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly WORTEX 2026 - Hungarian SC2 Finals Budapest
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 541 Binary Choice The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 540 Dodge This Mutation # 539 Thunder Dome
Brood War
General
Pros React To: Calm's Big Brain Play Vs Mini ASL22 General Discussion New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery! BW General Discussion Starcraft vs Retro Category on Twitch
Tourneys
BSL LAN Party - Kraków 29-30 August - OPEN SIGNUPS Escore Tournament - Season 3 [ASL22] Ro24 Group F [Megathread] Daily Proleagues
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Game Theory for Starcraft Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Anyone here play Quakeworld back in the day? EVE Corporation
Dota 2
Browser Invoker Combo Trainer & Speedrun Simulator Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Canadian Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Regacy Esports: The Bh…
regacyesports
Violent Games and Crime Rate…
TrAiDoS
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 3380 users

Let's Learn! Japanese - Lesson 002

Blogs > Marimokkori
Post a Reply
Marimokkori
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States306 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-11 14:12:10
May 02 2013 17:06 GMT
#1
Lesson 002 - Kana pt1


Cultural goodness
Every winter a snow festival is held in Sapporo during the month of February. A division of the Japanese military builds very impressive sculptures in Odori Park. There are usually about 400 snow sculptures throughout the event

+ Show Spoiler [Photos] +

[image loading]
[image loading]
[image loading]
[image loading]
[image loading]



On with learning!
Due to a suggestion in the previous entry, I'll be moving through the kana more quickly than originally intended.

平仮名 Hiragana
[image loading]


The pronunciation of each character is written underneath in romaji (Phonetic spelling of characters using the Roman alphabet). The pronunciation of each character is constant. It never changes, so you will only need to learn one pronunciation for each character.

The stroke order of each character is denoted by the blue numbered arrows. Every kana and kanji has a specific stroke order. It’s important to learn them for a few reasons:
The characters will be easier to learn/master
Each stroke order (for the most part) is designed for minimal movement, you’ll be able to write faster.
Improved legibility

Japanese characters should be written with uniform size. Even very complicated characters should be the same size as simple ones. It's a good idea to practice writing on graph paper or paper lined specifically for learning Japanese/Chinese characters. You can buy something like this, or download and print print something like this: + Show Spoiler +
[image loading]


Today we'll be looking at あ through こ - The two rightmost columns.

Pronunciation:
あ → father
い → pink
う → student
え --> grey
お --> open

Stroke order
あ+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

い+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

う+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

え+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

お+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]




Most of the remaining Hiragana use a single consonant sound followed by the vowel sounds learned above, with just a few exceptions that will be noted when we come across them.

Pronunciation
The か column uses the K consonant sound that you might expect the letter K to have. Kite, Kettle. Remember the vowel sounds stay the same as あ→お.
か → ka
き → ki
く → ku
け → ke
こ → ko

Stroke Order
か+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

き+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

く+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

け+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

こ+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]







Vocabulary introduced in this lesson (not really important at this point): Kana (Kanji) - Meaning
あい (愛) - love
あう (会う)- to meet; to see (as in going to meet/see someone)
あお (青) - blue (noun)
あく (悪) - evil
いう (言う)- to speak; to say
いえ (家) - house
いか (烏賊) - squid
いけ (池) - pond
うえ (上) - up; above; on top of
えき (駅) - station (as in a train station)
おい (甥) - nephew
かお (顔) - face (of a person)
かき (柿) - persimmon
かく (書く) - to write
かけ (賭け) - bet
かこ (過去) - past; bygone days
こえ (声) - voice (noun)

Side note:
You may have noticed that the chart I have included in this lesson is different from the one in the Japanesepod101 videos. The Hiragana characters ゑ and ゐ fell out of use in 1946, so we will be skipping them. Wikipedia has some information on these characters here for those who are interested.


Feedback over the course of these entries will be much appreciated, and I will try to tweak future lessons to everyone’s liking.

****
A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men
hp.Shell
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2527 Posts
May 02 2013 17:35 GMT
#2
し そ きゅうと!
:D Thanks for these!

I've been learning Japanese on memrise. I'm almost through the first lesson; I've just to wait for the final few plants to be ready for watering, and then I'll move on to the next lesson!

There I missed learning the kana for 'WE' and 'WI'. However, 'WO' was included. Imagine that! Hm, interesting that they became archaic around 1946. Still, they could be seen by a foreigner and cause confusion, so it's nice to take lessons from more than one source. Two heads are better than one!

すごい! Those snow sculptures! ez ご/ご
Please PM me with any songs you like that you think I haven't heard before!
spinesheath
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Germany8679 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-02 17:49:36
May 02 2013 17:38 GMT
#3
Didn't see see your blog when you posted part 1 of this, so I'll just post my comment about part 1 here as well:
Japanese syntax usually follows the order of SUBJECT - OBJECT - VERB.
This isn't actually true. It's (everything else, if anything at all, in no particular order) - VERB. See Tae Kim's guide. A very good guide by the way, although probably not very easy if one is completely new to the language (I went through Genki I + II before I stumbled across it, but I find it is structured much better than Genki).

A couple of handy things I came across so far:
The firefox plugin Rikaichan which displays Kanji information when you hover over Japanese text.
Two good online dictionaries: WWWJDIC and Denshi Jisho.
Handwritten Kanji recognition useful for practicing Kanji, especially stroke order.
Anki, a program for memorizing just about everything, very useful for vocabulary, for example like the Japanese Language Proficiency Test vocabulary.

On May 03 2013 02:35 hp.Shell wrote:
There I missed learning the kana for 'WE' and 'WI'. However, 'WO' was included. Imagine that! Hm, interesting that they became archaic around 1946. Still, they could be seen by a foreigner and cause confusion, so it's nice to take lessons from more than one source. Two heads are better than one!

ゑ (we) and ゐ (wi) are not used at all. Unless you read about the history of the language or very old books, I assume, but by the time you get to that point you will have long forgotten about these characters again. I doubt that these characters are even taught to Japanese children.
を (wo) on the other hand is the direct object particle and as such used very frequently (and always pronounced "o"). It doesn't appear in any words though, it's literally just a particle.
If you have a good reason to disagree with the above, please tell me. Thank you.
ieatkids5
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
United States4628 Posts
May 02 2013 18:38 GMT
#4
forgive me if im wrong, but isn't い pronounced like the EE in "see"? the vowel sound found in "pink" isn't really used in japanese. and another thing is お. it probably resembles the vowel sound found in "or" more than "open." the "o" sound in "open" is closer to the japanese "ou" sound, like in こう.

sorry if it sounds nitpicky... i think these lessons are a great contribution, and i just want them to be the highest quality possible.
HwangjaeTerran
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Finland5967 Posts
May 02 2013 18:52 GMT
#5
On May 03 2013 02:38 spinesheath wrote:

ゑ (we) and ゐ (wi) are not used at all. Unless you read about the history of the language or very old books, I assume, but by the time you get to that point you will have long forgotten about these characters again. I doubt that these characters are even taught to Japanese children.


They aren't.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/*tlusernamehere*/
Stratos
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Czech Republic6104 Posts
May 02 2013 19:08 GMT
#6
Here I go. From zero to complete mastery!!!

あ い う え お
か き く け こ
ok this took way longer than it should've rofl.

あい 愛 ai
あう 会う au
あお 青 ao
あく 悪 aku
いう 言う iu
いえ 家 ie
いか 烏賊 ika
いけ 池 ike
うえ 上 ue
えき 駅 eki
おい 甥 oi
かお 顔 kao
かき 柿 kaki
かく 書く kaku
かけ 賭け kake
かこ 過去 kako.. so uhm.. かかお kakao?^^ I guess I'd have to use 片仮名 if anything for that :>
こえ 声 koe

well this was all fun, but I lost all motivation to study more after not receiving any bonus points in the 2nd vid
En Taro Violet
spinesheath
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Germany8679 Posts
May 02 2013 19:10 GMT
#7
On May 03 2013 03:38 ieatkids5 wrote:
forgive me if im wrong, but isn't い pronounced like the EE in "see"? the vowel sound found in "pink" isn't really used in japanese. and another thing is お. it probably resembles the vowel sound found in "or" more than "open." the "o" sound in "open" is closer to the japanese "ou" sound, like in こう.

sorry if it sounds nitpicky... i think these lessons are a great contribution, and i just want them to be the highest quality possible.

I don't think one should care too much about that. Listen to (recordings of) native speakers. Everything else is seriously flawed (for example because the pronounciation of these English words isn't even unambiguous to begin with).
If you have a good reason to disagree with the above, please tell me. Thank you.
Marimokkori
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States306 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-02 19:19:26
May 02 2013 19:13 GMT
#8
On May 03 2013 02:38 spinesheath wrote:
Didn't see see your blog when you posted part 1 of this, so I'll just post my comment about part 1 here as well:
Show nested quote +
Japanese syntax usually follows the order of SUBJECT - OBJECT - VERB.
This isn't actually true. It's (everything else, if anything at all, in no particular order) - VERB. See Tae Kim's guide. A very good guide by the way, although probably not very easy if one is completely new to the language (I went through Genki I + II before I stumbled across it, but I find it is structured much better than Genki).

A couple of handy things I came across so far:
The firefox plugin Rikaichan which displays Kanji information when you hover over Japanese text.
Two good online dictionaries: WWWJDIC and Denshi Jisho.
Handwritten Kanji recognition useful for practicing Kanji, especially stroke order.
Anki, a program for memorizing just about everything, very useful for vocabulary, for example like the Japanese Language Proficiency Test vocabulary.

Show nested quote +
On May 03 2013 02:35 hp.Shell wrote:
There I missed learning the kana for 'WE' and 'WI'. However, 'WO' was included. Imagine that! Hm, interesting that they became archaic around 1946. Still, they could be seen by a foreigner and cause confusion, so it's nice to take lessons from more than one source. Two heads are better than one!

ゑ (we) and ゐ (wi) are not used at all. Unless you read about the history of the language or very old books, I assume, but by the time you get to that point you will have long forgotten about these characters again. I doubt that these characters are even taught to Japanese children.
を (wo) on the other hand is the direct object particle and as such used very frequently (and always pronounced "o"). It doesn't appear in any words though, it's literally just a particle.

Tae Kim's guide in the past (not sure about now) has contained a decent amount of incorrect information, so I very rarely use it, and when I do, I always verify with a native speaker. These days I only use it to verify something I've forgotten so I don't have to worry about learning something that isn't correct. Yes grammatically the word order can be different, but the most common word order you'll read/hear is indeed subject-object-verb, or just the verb, for basic sentences.

I use Anki for a lot more than Japanese It support Latex, so I use it for mathematics, I'm a waiter so I use it for learning ingredients of items on menus, business vocabulary, etc. It's really a fantastic program. I've been planning on introducing things like this as they become a bit closer to necessity as to avoid saying at the very beginning "Here's 100 things you need to do/get before you can even start" I find that a bit discouraging and it feels like doing a lot of work without actually learning anything.

On May 03 2013 03:38 ieatkids5 wrote:
forgive me if im wrong, but isn't い pronounced like the EE in "see"? the vowel sound found in "pink" isn't really used in japanese. and another thing is お. it probably resembles the vowel sound found in "or" more than "open." the "o" sound in "open" is closer to the japanese "ou" sound, like in こう.

sorry if it sounds nitpicky... i think these lessons are a great contribution, and i just want them to be the highest quality possible.


I tried to use words where I can highlight the romaji letter used for the corresponding kana. Pink was one of the first that came to mind when thinking of a long E sound with the letter I.

How do you say pink? The i sound in pink = long e = EE in "see"
You have an う sound when you say open? Open, pOke, cOpe. These O's all sound the same and = お

There are two ways of pronouncing おう sounds in Japanese. One being their standard pronunciations お(oh) う(oo). The other being the sound of お held for a longer period of time, like the word けっこう

Maybe our slightly differing opinions are based on location? I'm from the midwest in USA, so maybe we say things just a bit differently than wherever you're from.

On May 03 2013 04:10 spinesheath wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 03 2013 03:38 ieatkids5 wrote:
forgive me if im wrong, but isn't い pronounced like the EE in "see"? the vowel sound found in "pink" isn't really used in japanese. and another thing is お. it probably resembles the vowel sound found in "or" more than "open." the "o" sound in "open" is closer to the japanese "ou" sound, like in こう.

sorry if it sounds nitpicky... i think these lessons are a great contribution, and i just want them to be the highest quality possible.

I don't think one should care too much about that. Listen to (recordings of) native speakers. Everything else is seriously flawed (for example because the pronounciation of these English words isn't even unambiguous to begin with).


This is part of the reason I found some videos to include. I'll be gathering more recordings and including them as we go along also.

On May 03 2013 04:08 Stratos wrote:
Here I go. From zero to complete mastery!!!

あ い う え お
か き く け こ
ok this took way longer than it should've rofl.
+ Show Spoiler +

あい 愛 ai
あう 会う au
あお 青 ao
あく 悪 aku
いう 言う iu
いえ 家 ie
いか 烏賊 ika
いけ 池 ike
うえ 上 ue
えき 駅 eki
おい 甥 oi
かお 顔 kao
かき 柿 kaki
かく 書く kaku
かけ 賭け kake
かこ 過去 kako.. so uhm.. かかお kakao?^^ I guess I'd have to use 片仮名 if anything for that :>
こえ 声 koe

well this was all fun, but I lost all motivation to study more after not receiving any bonus points in the 2nd vid

Bonus points? You mean her useful tip/suggestion thing?
A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men
Stratos
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Czech Republic6104 Posts
May 02 2013 19:25 GMT
#9
In the first vid, she offers bonus points if we remember the meaning of the words. In the second one, we're just supposed to try ;;
En Taro Violet
ieatkids5
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
United States4628 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-02 19:30:14
May 02 2013 19:29 GMT
#10

Show nested quote +
On May 03 2013 03:38 ieatkids5 wrote:
forgive me if im wrong, but isn't い pronounced like the EE in "see"? the vowel sound found in "pink" isn't really used in japanese. and another thing is お. it probably resembles the vowel sound found in "or" more than "open." the "o" sound in "open" is closer to the japanese "ou" sound, like in こう.

sorry if it sounds nitpicky... i think these lessons are a great contribution, and i just want them to be the highest quality possible.


I tried to use words where I can highlight the romaji letter used for the corresponding kana. Pink was one of the first that came to mind when thinking of a long E sound with the letter I.

How do you say pink? The i sound in pink = long e = EE in "see"
You have an う sound when you say open? Open, pOke, cOpe. These O's all sound the same and = お

There are two ways of pronouncing おう sounds in Japanese. One being their standard pronunciations お(oh) う(oo). The other being the sound of お held for a longer period of time, like the word けっこう

Maybe our slightly differing opinions are based on location? I'm from the midwest in USA, so maybe we say things just a bit differently than wherever you're from.

maybe... i'm from upstate NY, but i think our accents should be the same...

do you really say 'pink' like "peenk"? how do you say "ink"? when i say it, the "i" sound in "pink" should be like the "i" sound in "kid" or "ill".

"You have an う sound when you say open? Open, pOke, cOpe. These O's all sound the same and = お"
no, i was trying to say that お sounds more like the "o" in "or", rather than the long "o" sound found in words like open and poke.
520
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States2822 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-02 19:48:32
May 02 2013 19:45 GMT
#11
The vowel sounds don't actually translate well to English because a lot of perceived monophthong sounds in English are actually diphthongs while all Japanese vowels (all five sounds) are monophthongs. That being said, I would have gone with something like the following.

あ → car
い → feet
う → true
え --> set
お --> core

Also to be noted is that the English 'k' sound is often aspirated, whereas it is not in Japanese. That is, the English 'k' sound is said with more force, and you can feel a burst of air when you say words like "kitchen." This isn't the same as in Japanese, and the 'k' sound is softer.
Writer
spinesheath
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Germany8679 Posts
May 02 2013 20:29 GMT
#12
In any case I think you should be exra careful when you introduce the 'r' column since the difference between English and Japanese 'r' is huge. The vowels shouldn't be much of a problem to imitate with some practice as long as you have some audio references.
Luckily for me, the English 'r' is much like the lazy pronounciation of the German 'r', while the Japanese one is somewhat similar to the actual German 'r'.
If you have a good reason to disagree with the above, please tell me. Thank you.
520
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States2822 Posts
May 02 2013 20:45 GMT
#13
On May 03 2013 05:29 spinesheath wrote:
In any case I think you should be exra careful when you introduce the 'r' column since the difference between English and Japanese 'r' is huge. The vowels shouldn't be much of a problem to imitate with some practice as long as you have some audio references.
Luckily for me, the English 'r' is much like the lazy pronounciation of the German 'r', while the Japanese one is somewhat similar to the actual German 'r'.

Even in German, the pronunciation of 'r' can be realized as an alveolar flap (similar to the Japanese 'r') or as a uvular fricative (similar to the French 'r') depending on the region or dialect, neither of which are remotely similar to each other.

The rhotic 'r' in English (an alveolar approximant) isn't particularly similar to either, but it doesn't matter because English realizes alveolar flaps in other forms (such as in latter).
Writer
Marimokkori
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States306 Posts
May 03 2013 03:54 GMT
#14
On May 03 2013 04:29 ieatkids5 wrote:
Show nested quote +

On May 03 2013 03:38 ieatkids5 wrote:
forgive me if im wrong, but isn't い pronounced like the EE in "see"? the vowel sound found in "pink" isn't really used in japanese. and another thing is お. it probably resembles the vowel sound found in "or" more than "open." the "o" sound in "open" is closer to the japanese "ou" sound, like in こう.

sorry if it sounds nitpicky... i think these lessons are a great contribution, and i just want them to be the highest quality possible.


I tried to use words where I can highlight the romaji letter used for the corresponding kana. Pink was one of the first that came to mind when thinking of a long E sound with the letter I.

How do you say pink? The i sound in pink = long e = EE in "see"
You have an う sound when you say open? Open, pOke, cOpe. These O's all sound the same and = お

There are two ways of pronouncing おう sounds in Japanese. One being their standard pronunciations お(oh) う(oo). The other being the sound of お held for a longer period of time, like the word けっこう

Maybe our slightly differing opinions are based on location? I'm from the midwest in USA, so maybe we say things just a bit differently than wherever you're from.

maybe... i'm from upstate NY, but i think our accents should be the same...

do you really say 'pink' like "peenk"? how do you say "ink"? when i say it, the "i" sound in "pink" should be like the "i" sound in "kid" or "ill".

"You have an う sound when you say open? Open, pOke, cOpe. These O's all sound the same and = お"
no, i was trying to say that お sounds more like the "o" in "or", rather than the long "o" sound found in words like open and poke.


Where I'm from we say pink as peenk, yes. Ink is the same way. eenk.

On May 03 2013 05:29 spinesheath wrote:
In any case I think you should be exra careful when you introduce the 'r' column since the difference between English and Japanese 'r' is huge. The vowels shouldn't be much of a problem to imitate with some practice as long as you have some audio references.
Luckily for me, the English 'r' is much like the lazy pronounciation of the German 'r', while the Japanese one is somewhat similar to the actual German 'r'.

I think it's a lot easier to explain the Japanese R to musicians that play wind instruments. Just a light articulation as you produce the R sound. I'm really not sure how else to describe it in an easy to understand way - thus there will be a nice amount of audio to go with it.

On May 03 2013 05:45 scintilliaSD wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 03 2013 05:29 spinesheath wrote:
In any case I think you should be exra careful when you introduce the 'r' column since the difference between English and Japanese 'r' is huge. The vowels shouldn't be much of a problem to imitate with some practice as long as you have some audio references.
Luckily for me, the English 'r' is much like the lazy pronounciation of the German 'r', while the Japanese one is somewhat similar to the actual German 'r'.

Even in German, the pronunciation of 'r' can be realized as an alveolar flap (similar to the Japanese 'r') or as a uvular fricative (similar to the French 'r') depending on the region or dialect, neither of which are remotely similar to each other.

The rhotic 'r' in English (an alveolar approximant) isn't particularly similar to either, but it doesn't matter because English realizes alveolar flaps in other forms (such as in latter).

Linguistics student?
A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men
520
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States2822 Posts
May 03 2013 04:33 GMT
#15
On May 03 2013 12:54 Marimokkori wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 03 2013 04:29 ieatkids5 wrote:

On May 03 2013 03:38 ieatkids5 wrote:
forgive me if im wrong, but isn't い pronounced like the EE in "see"? the vowel sound found in "pink" isn't really used in japanese. and another thing is お. it probably resembles the vowel sound found in "or" more than "open." the "o" sound in "open" is closer to the japanese "ou" sound, like in こう.

sorry if it sounds nitpicky... i think these lessons are a great contribution, and i just want them to be the highest quality possible.


I tried to use words where I can highlight the romaji letter used for the corresponding kana. Pink was one of the first that came to mind when thinking of a long E sound with the letter I.

How do you say pink? The i sound in pink = long e = EE in "see"
You have an う sound when you say open? Open, pOke, cOpe. These O's all sound the same and = お

There are two ways of pronouncing おう sounds in Japanese. One being their standard pronunciations お(oh) う(oo). The other being the sound of お held for a longer period of time, like the word けっこう

Maybe our slightly differing opinions are based on location? I'm from the midwest in USA, so maybe we say things just a bit differently than wherever you're from.

maybe... i'm from upstate NY, but i think our accents should be the same...

do you really say 'pink' like "peenk"? how do you say "ink"? when i say it, the "i" sound in "pink" should be like the "i" sound in "kid" or "ill".

"You have an う sound when you say open? Open, pOke, cOpe. These O's all sound the same and = お"
no, i was trying to say that お sounds more like the "o" in "or", rather than the long "o" sound found in words like open and poke.


Where I'm from we say pink as peenk, yes. Ink is the same way. eenk.

Show nested quote +
On May 03 2013 05:29 spinesheath wrote:
In any case I think you should be exra careful when you introduce the 'r' column since the difference between English and Japanese 'r' is huge. The vowels shouldn't be much of a problem to imitate with some practice as long as you have some audio references.
Luckily for me, the English 'r' is much like the lazy pronounciation of the German 'r', while the Japanese one is somewhat similar to the actual German 'r'.

I think it's a lot easier to explain the Japanese R to musicians that play wind instruments. Just a light articulation as you produce the R sound. I'm really not sure how else to describe it in an easy to understand way - thus there will be a nice amount of audio to go with it.

Show nested quote +
On May 03 2013 05:45 scintilliaSD wrote:
On May 03 2013 05:29 spinesheath wrote:
In any case I think you should be exra careful when you introduce the 'r' column since the difference between English and Japanese 'r' is huge. The vowels shouldn't be much of a problem to imitate with some practice as long as you have some audio references.
Luckily for me, the English 'r' is much like the lazy pronounciation of the German 'r', while the Japanese one is somewhat similar to the actual German 'r'.

Even in German, the pronunciation of 'r' can be realized as an alveolar flap (similar to the Japanese 'r') or as a uvular fricative (similar to the French 'r') depending on the region or dialect, neither of which are remotely similar to each other.

The rhotic 'r' in English (an alveolar approximant) isn't particularly similar to either, but it doesn't matter because English realizes alveolar flaps in other forms (such as in latter).

Linguistics student?

No, just someone with an interest in linguistics and foreign languages that does a decent amount of self-study.
Writer
yokohama
Profile Joined February 2005
United States1116 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-03 04:46:17
May 03 2013 04:44 GMT
#16
What the hell is Wi and We? I've never even seen those before.

EDIT: Guess I should read until the end :D
quannguyen
Profile Joined January 2012
Vietnam1390 Posts
May 03 2013 05:07 GMT
#17
Wow a "learning Japanese" thread on Team Liquid. This is just like a dream come true for me. Thank you so much OP for making this
Unlimited Warcraft Works and Super Starcraft Taisen ^^
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Sparkling Tuna Cup
10:00
Weekly #144
SHIN vs GgMaChineLIVE!
CranKy Ducklings294
SHIN 35
CranKy Ducklings SOOP14
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Lowko499
mouzHeroMarine 414
Trap 39
SHIN 35
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 8038
Bisu 1390
Shuttle 917
Horang2 480
GuemChi 443
Mini 350
Zeus 155
Pusan 131
Killer 108
Hyun 71
[ Show more ]
ToSsGirL 67
Aegong 28
Bale 26
Free 19
Hm[arnc] 19
soO 18
Sacsri 13
yabsab 10
Icarus 8
Dota 2
Gorgc1579
Dendi1319
syndereN288
BananaSlamJamma242
Counter-Strike
fl0m3881
olofmeister1601
Other Games
singsing1767
hiko650
B2W.Neo538
crisheroes385
XaKoH 190
Liquid`LucifroN174
OGKoka 156
Sick156
Liquid`VortiX130
mouzStarbuck56
ArmadaUGS33
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• StrangeGG 66
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Nemesis1731
• TFBlade552
Other Games
• WagamamaTV368
Upcoming Events
Monday Night Weeklies
2h 10m
GSL
21h 10m
OSC
23h 10m
PiGosaur Cup
1d 10h
Kung Fu Cup
1d 21h
Replay Cast
2 days
The PondCast
2 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
3 days
CranKy Ducklings
4 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
5 days
[ Show More ]
OSC
5 days
WardiTV Weekly
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

BSL 2026 LAN: Kraków
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Light Tournament 2026

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
RSL Revival: Season 6
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026

Upcoming

CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Escore Tournament S3: King of Kings
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Calamity Invitational
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.