{"id":168,"date":"2008-07-11T14:23:13","date_gmt":"2008-07-11T21:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/?p=182"},"modified":"2008-07-11T14:23:13","modified_gmt":"2008-07-11T21:23:13","slug":"explaining-the-long-vowel-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/11\/explaining-the-long-vowel-sound\/","title":{"rendered":"Explaining the long vowel sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a previous post<\/a>, I talked about the surprising complexity in explaining long vowel sounds. Since then, I’ve made a little progress and decided to separate the \/ei\/ and \/ee\/ long vowel sounds completely.<\/p>\n

The decision finally came with a realization late in the night. (Yes, I probably spend way too much time thinking about this stuff.) I though about Katakana and its simplified system of using \u300c\u30fc\u300d for long vowel sounds. I thought about words that are obviously long \/e\/ vowel sounds such as \u300c\u30b1\u30fc\u30ad\u300d versus \/y\/ vowel sounds such as \u300c\u30e1\u30a4\u30af\u300d. You see, the fact that \u300c\u30e1\u30a4\u30af\u300d writes out the \u300c\u30a4\u300d instead of using \u300c\u30fc\u300d proves the fact that there is a significant and important difference between the two sounds. You can’t see this in Hiragana because \u300c\u30fc\u300d isn’t used for long vowel sounds.<\/p>\n

This convinced me that improved pronunciation was worth the little extra complexity it takes to explain this. But really it wasn’t that bad. Here’s what I ended up with.<\/p>\n

Before we go any further, we need to revisit Hiragana to talk about a very important aspect of Japanese pronunciation: the long vowel sound. When a sound is followed by the corresponding vowel sound: \u300c\u3042\u300d\u3001\u300c\u3044\u300d\u3001\u300c\u3048\u300d\u3001or \u300c\u304a\u300d, the combination forms a single, longer vowel sound. It is very important to fully extend the vowel sound for correct pronunciation. The table given below illustrates what matching vowel sounds indicate a long vowel sound.\u3000The rows in grey are very rare combinations found in only a few words that will be pointed out as we learn them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Table 1.6. Extending Vowel Sounds<\/caption>\n
Vowel Sound<\/th>\nExtended by<\/th>\nExample<\/th>\nPronunciation<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
\/ a \/<\/td>\n\u3042<\/td>\n\u307e\u3042<\/td>\nmaa<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\/ i \/<\/td>\n\u3044<\/td>\n\u3044\u3044<\/td>\nii<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\/ u \/<\/td>\n\u3046<\/td>\n\u304f\u3046<\/td>\nkuu<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\/ e \/<\/td>\n\u3044<\/td>\n\u305b\u3044<\/td>\nsei<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\/ e \/<\/td>\n\u3048<\/td>\n\u306d\u3048<\/td>\nnee<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\/ o \/<\/td>\n\u3046<\/td>\n\u3068\u3046<\/td>\ntoo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\/ o \/<\/td>\n\u304a<\/td>\n\u3068\u304a<\/td>\ntoo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I plan to replace the \u30ed\u30fc\u30de\u5b57 with links to the actual pronunciations once I get to adding sound.<\/p>\n

Now, this still glosses over the issue the combinations don’t always<\/em> make a long vowel sound. You also have to consider how the sounds line up with the Kanji. For instance with \u300c\u7d4c\u7def\u300d, the long vowel sound is in the first character: \u300c\u3051\u3044\u300d. In other words, it should be read as \u300c\u3051\u3044\u30fb\u3044\u300d and not \u300c\u3051\u30fb\u3044\u3044\u300d. Another example is \u300c\u554f\u3046\u300d, which obviously can’t be a long vowel since the \u300c\u3046\u300d is outside the kanji. But given that I’m explaining long vowel sounds for the first time<\/em> much less anything about Kanji, I have no choice but to skip the more intricate aspects. Besides, you better know some kanji if you’re advanced enough to actually use words like \u300c\u7d4c\u7def\u300d and \u300c\u554f\u3046\u300d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a previous post, I talked about the surprising complexity in explaining long vowel sounds. Since then, I’ve made a little progress and decided to separate the \/ei\/ and \/ee\/ long vowel sounds completely. The decision finally came with a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beginner","category-textbook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}