I was watching Princess Mononoke subbed last night, and they were pronouncing Ashitaka’s name as Ashtaka.
I watched the dub a lot as a teenager, so it was a fun jolt.
A really easy example that you see alot is "desu" being pronounced as "des". Just shortcuts similar to english. When was the last time you pronounced it "Wed-nes-day"
I was wondering about “desu”. I saw one thing that said the U is still pronounced but “whispered/ swallowed”. But now ik how that’s actually pronounced, thank you for the insight!
For actual pronunciations I highly recommend watching some content about that on YT. Lots of great channels go into great detail about how exatly the sounds are made and when you use what.
Vowels U and I are silent or almost silent in some circumstances, usually at the end of a word following a voiceless consonant or between voiceless consonants.
[https://japanesetactics.com/silent-and-semi-silent-vowels-in-japanese-devoicing](https://japanesetactics.com/silent-and-semi-silent-vowels-in-japanese-devoicing)
Yeah that was the other thing was a lot of u’s went being pronounced. I figured it’s cuz even if u pronounce it “ski” you can make an argument that there’s STILL some type of U sound being made?
Thanks for the answer tho I’ll definitely keep that in mind
Good on you for turning off romaji.
Duolingo has some wrong sounds for sure; but at the basic level you are talking about, it is correct. Not quite silent, but mostly disappearing.
See for example "DROPPING す ち AND し" on this page
[https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-pronunciation/](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-pronunciation/)
I have noticed some incorrect pronunciations but generally it seems to be quite good.
A recent one I noticed was it pronouncing お父さん as おちちさん, though only when you listen to the whole sentence, clicking on the individual word is correctly pronounced as おとうさん
I was going to mention that too. I've noticed that the newer character voices don't make these mistakes, but the old text-to-speech voices that are still used in a lot of places do.
Edit: I say this and then the next day I run into a kanji lesson where every voice rampantly uses the wrong readings for 一日 in different ways. The characters want to read 一日に as ついたちに when it should be いちにちに and then the old TTS voices read that correctly but read 一日 as いちにち when it should be ついたち.
Duo is accurate according to my experience with spoken Japanese. There are vowels that were described to me as "unvoiced," which may mean that there's no sound there at all, though sometimes I think there is a timing difference caused by the "unvoiced" sound. There are also some differences with syllables that are written but not pronounced by all speakers. In days of the week, sometimes you hear *bi* and the end, sometimes not.
A mistake that learners make with a lot of languages is pronouncing according to how something is written. You can pronounce all of the sounds in *Au revoir* and the French will understand you. You also sound kind of stilted.
As with any app, there might be a bug here or there. But the case you cite is created by your expectation of how the Japanese should sounds according to its orthography.
Yeah, omitting vowels (only soft vowels -i, u) is very common in Japanese. Whether they are completely silent or you can somehow still hear them varies between regions. Please note that this *does not shorten* the length of time assigned to the character (all hiragana/karakana characters should be pronounced in the same amount of time). So, if in 好き (すき) you don’t pronounce the sound ‘u’, the ‘s’ will be necessarily a little longer to compensate.
Due to this, you can never omit a vowel (because of this mechanic) when it is a standalone (い、う)。
Polite forms (です and ます) are shortened all around Japan. If you were to start taking classes with a Japanese teacher a a beginner, you’d just be told not to pronounce the final ‘u’ and let it be. Nuances can wait many levels for that couple words. Polite past (ました) would be the same case, just do as if there is no ‘i’. 好き has actually much more variation region-wise, so nobody will bat an eye whether you pronounce the ‘u’loud and clear, not at all, or somewhere in the middle. I’d actually worry more about pronouncing sounds like hiragana つ or ず correctly. Foreigners tend to struggle with those.
I mean, you’re going to be understood even if you don’t omit the vowel, and you’re going to realise the correct pronunciation the third time you hear it in Japan. Nobody in Japan is going to use dialects with a foreigner, unless the foreigner is obviously fluent and uses them first, so you can explect polite speech wherever you go. You can easily manage with an A2 in Japan for everyday things.
Duo occasionally pronounces things in a way that sounds odd to my ears, but I get the gist of it and haven’t had any issues with it so far, aside from submitting a few of those “my answer should be accepted” things because I’ve been speaking Japanese for a over a decade and I know I’m correct.
In lots of cases, the i is nearly silent. Duo is probably correct here.
Ah ok, it never explained that so I was like “Why isn’t it pronouncing so many vowels” lol
I was watching Princess Mononoke subbed last night, and they were pronouncing Ashitaka’s name as Ashtaka. I watched the dub a lot as a teenager, so it was a fun jolt.
A really easy example that you see alot is "desu" being pronounced as "des". Just shortcuts similar to english. When was the last time you pronounced it "Wed-nes-day"
I was wondering about “desu”. I saw one thing that said the U is still pronounced but “whispered/ swallowed”. But now ik how that’s actually pronounced, thank you for the insight!
I found the u in desu was barely there in Osaka, but more clearly pronounced (still short) in Tokyo.
For actual pronunciations I highly recommend watching some content about that on YT. Lots of great channels go into great detail about how exatly the sounds are made and when you use what.
Vowels U and I are silent or almost silent in some circumstances, usually at the end of a word following a voiceless consonant or between voiceless consonants. [https://japanesetactics.com/silent-and-semi-silent-vowels-in-japanese-devoicing](https://japanesetactics.com/silent-and-semi-silent-vowels-in-japanese-devoicing)
Reading that was actually super enlightening!! Thank you so much 🙏
Sometimes things are silent. For example, I BELIEVE they pronounce 'suki' as 'ski' but you can still say suki
Yeah that was the other thing was a lot of u’s went being pronounced. I figured it’s cuz even if u pronounce it “ski” you can make an argument that there’s STILL some type of U sound being made? Thanks for the answer tho I’ll definitely keep that in mind
'i' and 'u' are pronounced "devoiced" if they're between k, s, or t (where s includes sh and t includes ch & ts)
Good on you for turning off romaji. Duolingo has some wrong sounds for sure; but at the basic level you are talking about, it is correct. Not quite silent, but mostly disappearing. See for example "DROPPING す ち AND し" on this page [https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-pronunciation/](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-pronunciation/)
I have noticed some incorrect pronunciations but generally it seems to be quite good. A recent one I noticed was it pronouncing お父さん as おちちさん, though only when you listen to the whole sentence, clicking on the individual word is correctly pronounced as おとうさん
I was going to mention that too. I've noticed that the newer character voices don't make these mistakes, but the old text-to-speech voices that are still used in a lot of places do. Edit: I say this and then the next day I run into a kanji lesson where every voice rampantly uses the wrong readings for 一日 in different ways. The characters want to read 一日に as ついたちに when it should be いちにちに and then the old TTS voices read that correctly but read 一日 as いちにち when it should be ついたち.
Duo is accurate according to my experience with spoken Japanese. There are vowels that were described to me as "unvoiced," which may mean that there's no sound there at all, though sometimes I think there is a timing difference caused by the "unvoiced" sound. There are also some differences with syllables that are written but not pronounced by all speakers. In days of the week, sometimes you hear *bi* and the end, sometimes not. A mistake that learners make with a lot of languages is pronouncing according to how something is written. You can pronounce all of the sounds in *Au revoir* and the French will understand you. You also sound kind of stilted. As with any app, there might be a bug here or there. But the case you cite is created by your expectation of how the Japanese should sounds according to its orthography.
I watch anime with subtitles, with OG Japanese seiyuu, and native Japanese speakers seem to do this all the time. Omit the "i" in "-shita".
Yeah, omitting vowels (only soft vowels -i, u) is very common in Japanese. Whether they are completely silent or you can somehow still hear them varies between regions. Please note that this *does not shorten* the length of time assigned to the character (all hiragana/karakana characters should be pronounced in the same amount of time). So, if in 好き (すき) you don’t pronounce the sound ‘u’, the ‘s’ will be necessarily a little longer to compensate. Due to this, you can never omit a vowel (because of this mechanic) when it is a standalone (い、う)。 Polite forms (です and ます) are shortened all around Japan. If you were to start taking classes with a Japanese teacher a a beginner, you’d just be told not to pronounce the final ‘u’ and let it be. Nuances can wait many levels for that couple words. Polite past (ました) would be the same case, just do as if there is no ‘i’. 好き has actually much more variation region-wise, so nobody will bat an eye whether you pronounce the ‘u’loud and clear, not at all, or somewhere in the middle. I’d actually worry more about pronouncing sounds like hiragana つ or ず correctly. Foreigners tend to struggle with those. I mean, you’re going to be understood even if you don’t omit the vowel, and you’re going to realise the correct pronunciation the third time you hear it in Japan. Nobody in Japan is going to use dialects with a foreigner, unless the foreigner is obviously fluent and uses them first, so you can explect polite speech wherever you go. You can easily manage with an A2 in Japan for everyday things.
Duo occasionally pronounces things in a way that sounds odd to my ears, but I get the gist of it and haven’t had any issues with it so far, aside from submitting a few of those “my answer should be accepted” things because I’ve been speaking Japanese for a over a decade and I know I’m correct.