The way the Japanese speak

- Developing teaching materials for education of spoken Japanese based on contrastive studies among Japanese, English and Chinese
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Samples of Japanese and Chinese articulation on MRI movies

The Japanese /u/ and Chinese /u/ do not coincide at the phonetic level. The Chinese find it difficult to master the Japanese /u/, and their pronunciation is often perceived by Japanese natives as /i/, not /u/. This article shall investigate in detail the actual differences by using MRI..


Japanese /u/ (Tokyo dialect)
  

Chinese /u/ (Peking dialect)
Press the triangle button to watch movies on the two pronunciations.

These movies show that (i) the Chinese /u/ is pronounced with a forward movement of the lips, whereas the Japanese /u/ is pronounced without such a movement; and (ii) the narrowest point in the oral cavity is pushed more forward in the case of the Japanese /a/ than it is in the case of the Chinese /a/.

Click here to see more details. (Another window)

(Sorry, the normal replay of the audiovisual data is available only for Internet Explorer.)

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Last updated: May, 2007
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