Long Vowels

[ZeRinku]

Okay so I just saw a post on Tae Kim's blog about long vowels and there are a lot of arguments. I have to ask a few questions about the subject.

For example look at this sentence

一緒に行こう。

(JUST AS A NOTE THE " * " I USE IN RESEMBLES A SHORT PAUSE)

In the blog post it was said that 問う would be pronounced "to*u" and not "tou" with a long vowel sound. The reason for this that was explained was that う was outside the kanji so you can't make the long vowel sound. But in the sentence above I have heard this exact sentence pronounced "isshoniikou", as if it was one word. It was not pronounced "isshoni*ikou". To show what I am talking about look at this video and go to about the 55 second mark and you will hear this sentence and see what I mean.(Spoilers for those who haven't beat Kingdom Hearts 2)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ViteuIExXoA

So basically what I am trying to understand is in a word like 問う is it pronounced really pronounced as "to*u" and not "tou"? Another example of this is 請う is it pronounced "ko*u" or "kou"? Because in the video "ni" is blended with "i" in 行こう as though it is a long vowel even though the "ni" is outside the kanji of 行. The other example that was used in the blog post was this word 経緯. Is it pronounced "kei*i" or a long "keii"? I know that I am rambling on and you might be confused but read the blog post here http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/200 ... wel-sound/ and you will see what I'm talking about.

So any input about this?

Oh and I was also wondering in a sentence like this

机の上に辞書がある。

can "ga" and "aru" be blended together to make a long vowel sound or do you say "ga" then stop and then say "aru"? There are much much more examples of this type of thing with different words and different particles and what not obviously but I want to know what can be blended together in a sentence and what can't.

[QuackingShoe]

Man, don't link to spoilers, even if the game is kindof old now...

It's a lot easier to learn pronunciation by just listening to pronunciation. All the write-up is kindof a waste of time IMO.

For the record though, the に行こう in that video was pretty distinct as far as I'm concerned. But it's a matter of acclimation. Basically, everything people say in a language you're not too familiar with sounds like a bunch of really long words with mashed up sounds. You'll get used to it.

[Belton]

interesting. but it strikes me as a storm in a teacup.

I think they're confusing sounds with the symbols and conventions in representing those sounds.
speech comes first then comes writing.
They can cope with は、を、へ　representing particular sounds when particles rather than the sound usually ascribed to them.
I don't see えい　or おう as being anything other than orthography. A way of showing in writing that the previous え or お row sound is lengthened.
えい　is /ay/ as in say as a single sound over two beats. not two sounds えand い

as he says himself ええ combinations are so rare so as to be exceptions. and in my quick dictionary survey seem to happen mainly in kanji compounds when they do.

katakana spellings don't really add anything to the argument in my opinion.
メイク　and メーク　are both acceptable ways to write make as in make-up, cosmetics

I see the logic in the 問う　example. I'm not sure which way I'd go.
but then what happens in an all hiragana text? when you don't have this kanji origana distinction?

I must say in 5 years these sort of minutiae have never been pointed out to me by JSL trained teachers.
I do think it's a fundamental mistake to learn speaking from a written text. You learn speech by listening, mimicking and correcting.
First speech then writing as an imperfect representation.

Ascribing pronunciation to kanji is backwards for the most part in my opinion. Speech existed then the kanji were bolted on. Especially with all those Japan native words. Are there any Chinese derived verbs that aren't a する combination? I don't know.

Generally in speech it all runs together unless there is some sort of punctuation. More so in Japanese than English. The boundaries English speakers ascribe to Japanese words are for our convenience and might not be recognised by Japanese. (just look at how they write in romaji sometimes)

you can put in these logical pauses
isyouni ikou
jishoga aru
or run them together
however with particles they "belong" to the previous word so jisho gaaru sounds unnatural compared to jishoga aru

In compound kanji I'd say they run together otherwise you are in danger of introducing glottal stops that just aren't there. but again I would say hear the sound rather than read it. In much the same way that we recognise a word in English and say what we expect it/know it to be rather than resort to phonics all the time.

[ZeRinku]

Well I am just going to continue to pronounce things the way I usually do. I have been studying Japanese for quite a while and I guess I never noticed these type of things until it was pointed out. I mean in Japanese people try to shorten some sounds in their speech to make it easier to say(like の）...thats why I find it hard to believe that the Japanese would take the time to distinguish "to" from "u" in 問う ...

I am worrying about this too much.

[Psy]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is, so to speak, "picking at the corners of one's lunchbox." I'm all for teaching things as accurately as possible, but for any foreign language, a huge amount of acclimation has to happen before a student can even consider catching nuances in pronunciation. I'll go with Belton in that it's completely bass-ackwards to try to teach pronunciation relying entirely on the written script, for the script is the guidepost and not the rule. While knowing tricks and subtleties help, I feel this short article is only complicating what would otherwise be a natural (albeit lengthy) process: listen, pay close attention, and imitate.

Summing it up, which is the better idea?

1) Describe in grotesque detail the phonetic details of the word 映画, discussing word origins, modern usage and morphology.

OR

2) Listen to a native speaker say the word.

Your call.

[ZeRinku]

Choice 2 please.