Question on Beginner Lesson 38 Season 1

[istephenyu8790]

Question on the very first line of the dialogue.

Listening to speaker say とうちゃく .

I hear a ja sound instead of the cha sound produced by　ちゃ。

Can someone go to the lesson link, listen to speaker say the phrase and tell me what they hear?

Thanks

[Teabag]

I was there but didn't see any とうちゃ.
http://www.japanesepod101.com/2006/02/22/beginner-lesson-38-shopping-with-the-girls/#intro

Would you please point out the audio time precisely for us to take a listen?
Or maybe wrong season? Wrong lesson?

[istephenyu8790]

O sorry!!! i meant Lesson 48. It was pretty late when I posted so derp.

[team.relationships]

Hello Istephenyu8790,

This is a "cha" and not a "ja" to me, no doubt about this.
This kind of mishearing might happen sometimes, don't worry!
Thank you for your comment!

Cheers,
Mélanie
Team JapanesePod101.com

[istephenyu8790]

Ahh I see thank you.

I believe the reason I mishear is because I produce the ch sound incorrectly, so I have a different conception of how the ch should be produced.

Any tips on how to pronounce the japanese ch sound?

Specifically, I'm curious of the tactile description. So if I start with the english 'ch' sound, continuously puff out the sound ( its an affricative so it can't be held) , and then transition to the japanese ch sound, what change in position would you feel in the mouth?

Thanks again.

[videovillain]

Just the 'ch' in both English and Japanese are the same. But if you are talking about a difference between 'chi' and 'cha' then I would say the 'chi' leaves you in the smiling position like saying cheese and the 'cha' leaves you in the Ahaa! position like you just understood something difficult.

The best example (made up) English word I can give would be "chopper" - referring to a motorcycle or helicopter. The 'cho' is pronounced the same way as the 'cha' in とうちゃく

Hope that helps!

[istephenyu8790]

No they are different. They are spelled the same and that's the only same thing. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the two sounds are given separate symbols because they are produced differently. Same goes for the sh sound.

[istephenyu8790]

If any native Japanese knows Mandarin, is it pretty much the same way they pronounce their 'q' and 'x'

[videovillain]

No they are different. They are spelled the same and that's the only same thing. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the two sounds are given separate symbols because they are produced differently. Same goes for the sh sound.

As far as I can see the IPA gives the Japanese 'ち' and English 'ch' the same [t͡ʃ] symbol...

Also, you were asking for help pronouncing it, and I have you examples of how your mouth will change.

[istephenyu8790]

I agree with your input on how the mouth moves. I guess I'll settle with that for now.

Btw, the symbol I found for the Japanese 'ch' was t͡ɕ. The English 'ch' is indeed tʃ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_ ... _affricate

[community.japanese]

istephenyu8790-san, videovillain-san,
wow, very academic thread here

As far as I'm concerned, the /ch/ is pretty same in English and Japanese, which means
even if you pronounce it slightly differently, no native Japanese would even realise
it's a different sound.
I think all those /ch/ sounds used in Japanese can also be changed depending on "where" this
sound comes and what vowel it takes. For example, I'm pretty sure "chu" would sound very different
for your ears if you hear Japanese ones as in "chuui" (= caution). This gets /ch/ gets influence from
Japanese [u] which is different from English one as well.

If you want to make your pronunciation perfect as written in books, the best you can do
would not just see the simbol in IPA, but understand the name for the sound/simbol because
that is what tells us (exactly) how to pronounce and I reckon it's more important to remember.
For instance,
[ʧ]: voiceless palato-alveolar affricate 無声後部歯茎破擦音（むせいこうぶしけいはさつおん）
[t͡ɕ]: voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate 無声歯茎硬口蓋破擦音（むせいしけいこうこうがいはさつおん）
As you see, both are "voiceless affricate" sounds and the slight difference is the point where you make this
sound, but both are near alveolar. From my experiences, unless you have both sounds in one language (which
is your mother tongue), no one can really hear such difference.

Hope this helps.

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[istephenyu8790]

It's good to hear that it's not that important of a matter. I know that in Mandarin, the 'q' in Mandarin is often mistaken for an english 'ch' sound by english speakers and it's a noticeable difference for Mandarin speakers (at least in Beijing), even tho the english 'ch' isn't in mandarin. In that regard, I'm glad I don't have to go through the same hurdle I did in Mandarin.

So thanks for the clarification. On another topic, it seems that the japanese phonology renders native monolingual japanese with relatively less trained ears, due to a small subset of sounds. I also read up on how the ones trying to learn english have a hard time differentiating the english r and l. There seems to be many studies devoted just to that topic.

On yet another note, I read that Japanese is easy to pickup in terms of speaking and can attest to that personally. However, I read its hard to perfect the japanese accent. If native japanese do not have as well trained ears for foreign sounds and they have a small bank of phonetic sounds, what are the subtle factors that lead to the difficulty of perfecting the japanese accent? Of course, I don't expect anyone to have a perfect answer to this, but just question for thought.

[videovillain]

That is interesting food for thought! I've thought about it often but I have no time now to write about it so I'll write later!

[istephenyu8790]

Actually going back to the touchaku word whose 'ch' i had trouble hearing. I listened to that lesson again just now and still had the same trouble despite knowing it was a ch sound.

I compared that 'cha' to the 'ja' the from same speaker and indeed they were distinguishable so it wasn't a j. But then I compared it to a voiceless clean 'ch' and it sounded different. So then I tried combining both 'ch' and 'j' sounds together and it sounded more like the 'ch' i was hearing.

i played the audio thing at .5x speed so i could hear the 'ch' sound but at 1x speed or 1.25x speed i still get the impression of a j. So maybe it is a combination of 'ch' and 'j'?

Or maybe I've been hearing and practicing too much that i'm just hearing things lol.

[istephenyu8790]

By hearing a voiceless clean 'ch' I mean typing とうちゃく into google translate and listening to their audio reader say the phrase.