baasheep39 wrote:How do you pronounce japanese words with double "tt"s and "ii"s and "pp"s?
First, welcome to the formus :victory:
<phonetic explanation>
Double consonants represent a longer stop than usual between the approach and release phases of stop phonemes.
</phonetic explanation>
Here's what that means in layman's terms:
Take the words:
Œ¨ [‚©‚½] kata - shoulder
and
”ƒ‚Á‚½ [‚©‚Á‚½] katta - past tense of 'buy'
In the first, you can pronounce it just like it looks with the regular amount of stop time between the 'a' in the first syllable and the 'a' in the second syllable.
For the second, however, say 'kat', but hold your breath (you should be able to feel a little amount of pressure building up in your mouth) for about half a second before you release the 't' and pronounce the final 'ta'.
The only difference in the words is in the length of articulation pronouncing the 't'.
As for long vowels, you just increase the length of that particular vowel (so that is is about double the length that it would be regularly).
Ex.:
—ˆ‚½ [‚«‚½] kita - past tense of 'come'
and
•·‚¢‚½ [‚«‚¢‚½] kiita - past tense of 'hear' or 'ask'
Just articulate the 'i' in the second for a little longer than you ususally would.
Something like the difference in length of the vowels in the following English words:
feet - [fit] - Long 'i'
me - [mi:] - Short 'i'
Now, some may argue that they are the same, and in fact, they are in their underlying form. There is a difference, however, for most speakers of English. Say the words a few times to yourself to see if you can feel the difference in length.
Japanese is like the above, but the long vowels are just a tad longer.
Anyway, I hope that explanation helped.
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