hello everyone,
i'm Joe. i need some help saying a name. there is this girl who is japanese her name is yayoi. i ask her when i first met her what her name is and she said yayoi. but i can't remember the name and i don't know how you say it. can anyone help me out. you can also e-mail me at [email protected]. i would ask her but i only see her on sundays at chruch.thank you for your time.
-Joe:)

Japanese Pronunciation Guide

Vowels
The pronunciation of short vowels is similar to that of Italian:

a as in f(a)ther (use this sound for the 'ya')
e as in g(e)t
i as in macaron(i) (use this sound for the 'i')
o as in p(o)lo (use this sound for the 'yo')
u as in p(u)t or b(ook)

Copied from this site.

RR

I'm not american, so I could do some mistakes :

Ya as in "Ya"hoo
Y as in "Y"ahoo

and then "o" and "i" as in macaroni.

For me, English pronunciation is harder than Japanese pronunciation -_-
_________________

thank you rivenrock and Xavio,
so i say it like yeah-get-e right? is that how you say yayoi?
-Joe:)

More like yeah-YO-ee.

'ya' is defintely not pronouned 'yeah'

Do you pronounce 'yahoo' as 'yeah-hoo'? If so, you should stop doing that.

You remembered the girl's name. That's enough. Just walk up and say, 'hi, it's Yayoi, right?' If you screw up the pronunciation, she will correct you...no big deal. Repeat it a couple of times right then and there. If she's smart, she'll be pleased that you WANT to remember her name, and not too worried about if you got it right the first time.

RR

rivenrock wrote:

'ya' is defintely not pronouned 'yeah' Do you pronounce 'yahoo' as 'yeah-hoo'? If so, you should stop doing that.

You got me there. I was correcting his yo and didn't change the ya. I missed that one.

Yayoi... what a pretty name.... I believe the best transliteration of it would be: Ya-yo-'E'

Ya- as in "yawn"
Yo- as in "yo! whats up?"
E- the way the letter is read

Hope that helps!

�u�퐶�v����ˁB

���̐搶�Ɠ������O���E�E�E

you can hear the pronounciation here

I'm using Microsoft Speech Engine to generate this ^^

(^0^)

KuroiKitsune wrote:

Yayoi... what a pretty name.... I believe the best transliteration of it would be: Ya-yo-'E' Ya- as in "yawn" Yo- as in "yo! whats up?" E- the way the letter is read Hope that helps!

It IS a nice name. And this chick I knew who had that name was hella NICE too!
_________________

ya like ja, yo as yo, i like ii
I'm not sure though.
Nice name I say.

So this is the pronounciation thread...

I'm aware that in certain instances, vowels are not uttered in speech (e.g. �ł� pronounced de-s, ���� pronounced a-sh-ta, �� pronounced i-ch - dashes used to indicate separate syllables), but what are some guidelines about when to drop vowels? I think it has something to do with vowels being sandwiched between voiceless consonants, but I'm not sure. Also, I only know of this happening to the syllables ��, ��, ��, ��, and I believe a couple other u ones. Anyone have some insight into this matter for me? Thanks!

vega12 wrote:

So this is the pronounciation thread... I'm aware that in certain instances, vowels are not uttered in speech (e.g. �ł� pronounced de-s, ���� pronounced a-sh-ta, �� pronounced i-ch - dashes used to indicate separate syllables), but what are some guidelines about when to drop vowels? I think it has something to do with vowels being sandwiched between voiceless consonants, but I'm not sure. Also, I only know of this happening to the syllables ��, ��, ��, ��, and I believe a couple other u ones. Anyone have some insight into this matter for me? Thanks!

Exactly.
They are not really dropped, though. They are called "voiceless vowels." It sounds strange, but this is the phenomenon that happens in Japanese _pronunciation_ (not pronounciation).

It only occurs with U and I, though. And just like you said, between voiceless consonants. It happens with all (as far as I know) �� and �� sounds.

Eg:
������
�Ђ�
�K���N�^

HTH,

������
_________________

"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

While I am not a linguist, it seems the �� and �� sounds are dropped if the consonant that precedes it, in some ways, makes the vowel sound implicitly. Thus to say the vowel would cause it to become elongated.

But it is difficult to explain. After you hear native speakers say the sounds, you'll just get a feel on when to drop (not emphasize) the vowels.

dochira wrote:

While I am not a linguist, it seems the �� and �� sounds are dropped if the consonant that precedes it, in some ways, makes the vowel sound implicitly. Thus to say the vowel would cause it to become elongated. But it is difficult to explain. After you hear native speakers say the sounds, you'll just get a feel on when to drop (not emphasize) the vowels.

Hey Dochira!

I'm not trying to sound all high and mighty when I say this and no offense is meant so I hope you don't get mad

I actually am a linguist (still in uni , but we've gone over this phenomenon), and it's actually called "devoicing." I am a fluent speaker of Japanese as well, so I can tell you that even though we have all these rules, it still depends on the actual person saying the words, because there are exceptions to every rule (ie. everybody pronounces things different). It also happens in word final position after voiceless consonants (if there is no word following).

However, as you probably already know, this rule can be broken when someone wants to emphasize things, or if the speaker is trying to speak clearly. Kind of the same thing happens with the following English sentence:

I have got to go.

Someone who is speaking (Canadian West Coast English) casually would say:

[ajv gah te gow] (<- for lack of proper IPA symbols = I've gotta go).

But someone who is annunciating and trying to be clear would pronounce each sound, making it sound odd compared to everyday speech, but easily understandable.

Now I'm not saying the above example and Japanese voiceless vowel rules are alike in any way, shape, or form. I'm just saying that even though there are rules that govern how we speak, these rules are simply that: rules. They are broken all the time and should only be used as a basis on which you form your language skills.

Final Verdict:

It would be great if you can get this down to memory so that you don't have to think about it when you speak, but don't worry too much if you can't. It will come naturally eventually.

HTH,

������
_________________

"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

kokuou wrote:

Hey Dochira! I'm not trying to sound all high and mighty when I say this and no offense is meant so I hope you don't get mad

Seriously, no offense is taken. I didn't know you were a linguist as well. I knew you are one of the resident Japanese experts.

kokuou wrote:

I actually am a linguist (still in uni , but we've gone over this phenomenon), and it's actually called "devoicing." ... Now I'm not saying the above example and Japanese voiceless vowel rules are alike in any way, shape, or form. I'm just saying that even though there are rules that govern how we speak, these rules are simply that: rules. They are broken all the time and should only be used as a basis on which you form your language skills.

Hmm, let me see if I understand this correctly. Even in Japanese the word desu (�ł�) is supposed to be pronounced "de-su", and not "des" However subconsciously (or consciously) the (���j sound is dropped since its absence does not detract from the original word.

Did I mangle that explanation?

dochira wrote:

Hmm, let me see if I understand this correctly. Even in Japanese the word desu (�ł�) is supposed to be pronounced "de-su", and not "des" However subconsciously (or consciously) the (���j sound is dropped since its absence does not detract from the original word. Did I mangle that explanation?

Whew

Hehe... well, it's not because it doesn't detract from the word.
It's just a phenomenon that happens in Japanese.
There may be some psycholiguistic theory behind it, but I am not aware of it if there is.

I know that doesn't help, but it's the best I got

������
_________________

"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
-Bern Williams

Thanks for the insight into this! I just thought that there was a few select characters that had the vowels dropped and that there might be a few rules to determine when. For instance, would you drop the vowel(s) in ���� so that it is pronounced chich, chch, or something like that? Or, again, is it not easily quantifiable? I just suspected that it might be something like you can only drop the vowel when it wouldn't make the word ambiguous, or something like that...

mm i duno how else to describe it other than when you begin to speak japanese more fluently and quickly, sounds just kind of vanish in a natural way. i wouldn't eliminate the 'i' from chichi though bc then it would sound like your imitating the cocking of a gun. if anything it would be more like chchi than chch or chich.

Well, as a German, I could be sarcastic and say just read it as you write it... ���[�}���ʂ�, but that won't help you.

Ya is surely not as in yawn, because in yawn the a is pronounced more towards an "o".

Ya = as in "yahoo", "young", "yard" (short)
yoi = as in "boy", "toy"