Page 46 - Basic Japanese

The Japanese consonants s, z, sh, ch, and j are also

pronounced somewhat more FRONT than many American
speakers pronounce the English equivalents. Since the

American sounds are farthest front in words like see, zeal,
sheep, cheap, and jeep, it may help to think of the sounds in

these words. Some Japanese give the j a sound rather like
that used by the French in Jacques or by some Americans in

azure, garage, and rouge. (At the beginning of a word, many
Japanese pronounce z as if it were spelled dz; in slow over-

precise speech, you may hear the dz version even in the
middle of a word.)

Be careful how you pronounce the Japanese. English f is

made with the lower lip against the upper teeth. The
Japanese place both lips close together (as if about to make
a p or a b or as if about to whistle) and then let the air come

out in a puff between. A Japanese f, then, is an f WITHOUT

ANY TEETH. Occasionally you will hear a Japanese person
use an ordinary h instead of this f.

Japanese voiced consonants (b, d, z, j, g, m, n) are more

fully voiced than English initial voiced consonants. In English
we start off somewhat lazily with the voicing, giving our
vocal cords an instant to warm up. It is only between

vowels, rabbit, lady, dizzy, tiger, coming, and inning, that
we voice these sounds all the way through. Japanese warm

their vocal cords up an instant before they start to make the
sound and this gives their voiced consonants a bit more

prominence than ours.
The Japanese consonant g has two pronunciations. In

Southern Japan it is usually pronounced like g in English go
(but of course never like g in gem because that sound would

be written j). In Northern Japan, many people pronounce the

g always like the English sound in sing or singer. In Tokyo,