Thoughts on this link regarding pronunciation

[istephenyu8790]

http://www.angelfire.com/geek/tetrisnom ... ation.html

So apparently, the "wa" romaji phoneme is actually pronounced like a "ua" and no w sound as in english. I always thought wa sounded different, so it isn't too much of a surprise.

Also, is there some lesson covering how males and females pronounce words fundamentally differently. I understand the obvious difference that the males sound more deep and masculine and the females more high pitch and feminine. But beyond that, is there a difference in the inflection of the vowels? eg - the male pronunciation of "a" sound has a deeper inflection consistently possibly like the english word.

Since the person is not a native speaker, I still hold skepticism regarding the accuracy of everything,(though a lot of it seems right) so such as the analysis of the "n" particle, the claim is that it is different than the english pronunciation of n. It seems right, but I guess I would like some confirmation.

[community.japanese]

istephenyu8790-san,
I don't believe there're difference between males and females regarding pronunciations (other than the fact
you mentioned: deeper voice and so on).
There're, however, dialects which might show such differences. Of course, that's not what we need to focus on at all.

For this reason, we don't have lessons forcusing on male female pronunciations; whenever we have to call
attention regarding expressions used mainly by male/female, we always try to clarify it.

As to "n", it changes its pronunciation according to the next consonant, and it's almost the only thing we say "one letter
with more than one pronunciation"

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[istephenyu8790]

Thanks for the response natsuko! 　ありがとうございます

I would like to just bring up and make sure that the "ga" has multiple pronunciations if I'm correct based on what comes before it? Sometimes I hear a nasal n and sometimes it's a hard g, i think if there's nothing before it.

[community.japanese]

istephenyu8790-san,
glad I could help!

The pronunciation of "ga" (in standard Japanese) tend to become a nasal sound unless it comes at the beginning
of a word. Even if it comes at the beginning of a word, in a sentence, there can be possibility of becoming
nasal sound (I think it's rare, though). So, you're pretty much correct! Seems you've got really good ears

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com