掲示板 Forums - The Katakana dash "ー"

same

Unfortunately I often elongate the wrong vowel, even sounding out different syllables. Also sometimes it seems like a vowel is elongated, but then there's no dash at all. It's funny bc I'd think "the English words" would be easier, but often, not for me. (／。＼)

ありがとうございます。

The English katakana words are English only in origin; While being read and written, they're in Japanese. In general the katakana ー is used to emphasize the vowel extension or to indicate the English letter 'r' (as the Japanese ラ is sometimes 'r', sometimes 'l' and sometimes 'd'), but there are obviously exceptions. A simple 1:1 mapping doesn't exist between English and Japanese. Best bet is to hear the words (either activate listening vector in the quizzes and/or in the dictionary) in my opinion.

Yes, I thought I recognized that the dash often seems to "replace the r." I do try to imagine the Japanese pronunciation, but often miss. :(

I'm actually curious if you could tell me about any similarities you find between Spanish and Japanese, bc I've seen it mentioned. I know some Spanish and have been able to use it to make some mnemonics for vocabulary.

Muchas gracias! Also for the katakana words!

ありがとうございます for giving me hope!

That's an interesting topic to me. Although I am not an expert in phonetics to explain the exact reasons, I can affirm that the pronunciation of most Japanese kana (with some exceptions) is not a difficult problem from the perspective of a native Spanish speaker.

To begin with, the vowels are pronounced the same in Japanese and Spanish: A: ア, I: イ, U: ウ, E: エ, O: オ
But not in English:
A: ē (エー, sometimes pronounced ei, エイ)
I: ai (アイ)
U: yū (ユー)
E: ī (イー)
O: ō (オー)

Many words in Spanish use the same syllables as the Japanese kana syllabaries: casa (house), santo (saint), tomo (tome), moneda (coin), dado (dice), domo (dome), mono (monkey), etc. so it is easy to transcribe them into Japanese: カサ、サント、トモ、モネダ、ダド、ドモ、モノ . Or in other words, it is relatively easy to me pronounce kanas because they are already part of the Spanish vocabulary. (The are exceptions like: ツ, ル, シ, ジ, ヂ, which do not have equivalences as clear as the other syllables.)

Many times I find Japanese words that are almost identical (but with different pitch accent) to Spanish words, obviously with very different meanings, which I sometimes find funny:
から, is the same as the Spanish word cara (face)
もと, is the same as the Spanish word moto (bike)
かさ, is the same as the Spanish word casa (house)
And so on...

That certain familiarity with the kanas is what gives the sensation of "ease" in the pronunciation of Japanese words for a Spanish speaker.

"air" transcribed from English to Japanese: エア
"aire" transcribed from Spanish to japanese: アイレ
"auto" transcribed from English to Japanese: オート
"auto" transcribed from Spanish to Japanese: アウト
"Europa" transcribed from English to Japanese: ユーロパ
"Europa" transcribed from Spanish to Japanese: エウロパ

It is an interesting topic, perhaps for another post. It would be good to know about the challenges and similarities that speakers of other languages face when studying Japanese.

I only meant the dash often "indicates "r"" where there would normally be an "r" in the actual English word, though ofc it is pronounced as an elongated vowel in Japanese, as in, "カード."

I can't think of any specific examples, but it seems like the vowel pronunciation of "た" and/or "て" change a bit...? And that's when a consonant follows them. ?

ありがとうございます。

Oh right, so all the vowels are the same! I mainly noticed い and え, bc if I didn't know the Spanish I would've been mixing the sounds up for sure. But yeah, I guess that's why learning the vowel pronunciations has been pretty easy.

That's so cool it's easy to transcribe Spanish, too. I look forward to coming across words that sound like Spanish ones, and maybe it'll help me remember and/or come up w/ some mnemonics for them. One word that I remember by thinking of the (Spanish-pronounced) meaning of the word is really funny and kind of bad, though I think it's not totally grammatically correct Spanish. But I won't ruin the word for you in case you didn't think the same.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting, too, especially for me as said, to create mnemonics. I need anything and everything to try and remember... I know some French as well, so it's helped with a word or two so far. But yeah, I saw it commented that Spanish speakers seemed to have it easier with Japanese somehow...!?! If you do a post on it, let me know. グラーシーアズ!

I will take a note of the words where it seems to happen. I hope it wasn't just my imagination.

Ayep. I'm a townie!