Where are the natural pauses in Japanese?

[untmdsprt]

I can't imagine speaking a Japanese sentence without coming up for air to continue on. Where are the natural pauses in a sentence? Taking some sample sentences from a lesson:

いもうとさんはおげんきですか。
これもにくです。

I would say a natural pause would be after the は and も in these sentences.

[mmmason8967]

ジェニーさん、こんにちは。

I don't really know, but I'd expect phrases to typically end with a particle of some sort, and that the particle would mark a "natural pause". Taking a fairly long sentence from one of the JPod101 lessons as an example, and using colours to mark the phrases, I think it breaks down something like this:-

お盆は祖先をまつる期間なので、祖先の霊を迎える前にお墓を掃除するのは大切なことです。

O-bon wa sosen o matsuru kikan na no de, sosen no rei o mukaeru mae ni o-haka o souji suru no wa taisetsu na koto desu.

Obon is a period of honoring one's ancestors, so it is important to clean the family graves before welcoming their spirits.

I guess that the topic-marker wa will nearly always mark a "natural pause" but I think that the subject-marker ga probably nearly always won't. Taking an example sentence out of a text-book:-

私は来たときにはいませんでした。

Watashi wa kita toki ni wa imasen deshita.

When she came I was not there.

If you change the first wa to ga I think that ga joins the first two phraseｓ together and eliminates the "natural pause" (and, as an added bonus, significantly changes the meaning of the sentence as well):-

私が来たときにはいませんでした。

Watashi ga kita toki ni wa imasen deshita.

When I came she was not there.

マイケル

[untmdsprt]

That makes sense. I tend to do a slight pause at most particles unless a word and particle kind of flow together like どこにいますか。The "にい" is usually said like a long vowel sound.

I wonder if the native teachers here at Jpod101 would have some input in how they actually speak.

[community.japanese]

untmdsprt-san, マイケルさん、
very good question!
Thank you very much for the perfect explanation, マイケルsan!!

Having pauses after particles seem to be a good idea
That's where the smallest unit in a sentence ends, usually. As you get used to the language,
I'm sure you can continue a bit longer than the smallest unit, just like Michael-san showed in different colours.

Natsuko (奈津子)
JapanesePod101.com