Postby jkeyz15 » August 4th, 2007 4:18 am
I think pronunciation files for a dictionary are somewhat pointless. Japanese pronunciation is virtually static, and the writing represents the pronunciation unlike English.
Japanese sounds are very similar to sounds that exist in English. Most are extremely minor differences, and they're are some, possibly slightly difficult, major ones like the Japanese R (ɺ̠ in IPA*), W (ɰ in IPA), or the f/h sound in ふ (ɸ in IPA).
*I had an anal AP teacher who taught us the part of IPA used in English. I don't bother to memorize it for Japanese..to much trouble. I just copy and paste the IPA characters from wiki when I need to ^-^.
Pronunciation differences in most part are only due to different dialectual differences, or slight differences that are due to the "flow of speech." Pronunciation of single word is pointless for reasons stated above, if you study pronunciation it is better I think in the context of sentences and usage.