When I started considering
pronunciation problems in speaking a language besides L1 in general, and a
Japanese person speaking English in particular, my thoughts were fairly simple.
There are some sounds in our L1 (whatever
it may be) that aren’t in other languages, and some sounds in other languages
that aren’t in our L1. Because of this,
if we are going to learn to speak an L2 (or 3 or 4) with clarity, we will have
to learn these sounds and practice saying them. In
learning L1 as a child we tailored our tongues, lips, mouths, and muscles to
this language. We must retrain these and
make adjustments where necessary in order to make appropriate sounds in other
languages. There might even be some
mental retraining—learning a new writing system and the sounds associated with
the new symbols, or even looking at very familiar letters and associating different
and sometimes unfamiliar sounds to them. To me this seemed logical. Still, it doesn’t account for the broader scope
of issues that influence or cause pronunciation problems. In delving into issues more particular for
Japanese students, I often saw other obstacles.
Rhythm of speech, stress and unstress of syllables can also be
problematic to gaining the desired clarity of speech.
For a Japanese person learning
English, there are some sounds that need attention. This is namely because English includes
sounds not used in Japanese, and many English letters can be used to signify a
variety of sounds while Japanese symbols in hiragana and katakana only have one
pronunciation each. Using the phonetic
alphabet could be a benefit to the students.
Two of the consonant sounds particularly problematic for a Japanese
student speaking English are:
·
R-L.
There is no separate symbol or sound for these in Japanese; for them,
they have a sound that is somewhere between /r/
/l/ and /d/. The students will need to practice the
difference in words such as “raw and law,” “right and light” and “fright and
flight.” Not learning to separate the sounds could cause great confusion in
meaning.
·
Th –S/ D.
In English, “th” can be /ᶿ/ - /ᶞ/ but
neither sound exist in Japanese. They
are normally replaced with /s/ and /d/ respectively. “Thank you” sounds like “Sahnk you,” and
“father” more like “fodder.” The student
will need to work on differentiating: thing
and sing, worth and worse, think and sink, then and den.
There are only 5 vowels in the Japanese language. While
English may have 5 vowels letters (sometimes 6 with ‘y”) , these letters
represent many more than 5 or 6 vowel sounds.
·
/oʊ/ (work)
/ӕ/ (apple) and /ɝ/
(girl) are vowel sounds that don’t exist in Japanese and are often
replaced by /ɑː/ /ɔː/ or /e/.
These are by no means all of the problem sounds and there
is an extensive and detailed list at this website: http://englishspeaklikenative.com/resources/common-pronunciation-problems/japanese-pronunciation-problems/
.
Japanese
has a different writing system from English, although Romajii (Japananse
written in Latin letters) has become common with the use of electronics. Both hiragana – the writing system for words
of Japanese origin, and katakana – the writing system for foreign words- are
based on syllables. Japanese symbols
stand for syllables such as “ku, tu, su, na, ni, no.” “Ah” is the only stand
alone vowel, and “n” is the only stand alone consonant. All other come together. Foreign words get integrated into this system
and as such, vowels (often “o” or “u”) are added for their ease of pronouncing
strings of consonants. My last name
could become something like “Ku-la-ku-son” instead of “Clarkson.” This can pose an interesting problem for a
Japanese person speaking English. Since
they have already incorporated many English words and made them Japanese (some
may even seem unrecognizable) having the students say them in the English way
may be difficult.
English is
also a language that uses stress and unstressed syllables to create rhythm,
change meaning and add emphasis.
Japanese is unstressed. Speaking
English without the stress and the rhythm could cause a native English speaker
to have difficulty understanding what is said. Shizuka Kamij writes more
extensively about this issue in the
article here.
This stressing
and unstressing of syllables, rhythm considerations, and various
differences in sounds can pose major issues in clarity and
fluency of speech for a Japanese person speaking English.
