Mandarin For Japanese A Post

• Valenhar

  7 May 09, 14:25

  Hi, My name is valen.

  Recently, I am doign the research about japanese language but encounter soem problem.

  Suki desu = Suki des / ski des?

  Can i skip the "u " for the desu and keep the "u" for the Suki or i need to remove both "u?

  And how does it translate into engligh and chinese?

  I like it equal to "Suki Des?

  I did a lot of research but show me different thing. any japanese people can help me in this topic.

  Thank you very much

  If you can email me and i am very appreciate or you can reply here?

   

• Bangulzai

  7 May 09, 18:06

  Originally posted by Valenhar:

  Hi, My name is valen.

  Recently, I am doign the research about japanese language but encounter soem problem.

  Suki desu = Suki des / ski des?

  Can i skip the "u " for the desu and keep the "u" for the Suki or i need to remove both "u?

  And how does it translate into engligh and chinese?

  I like it equal to "Suki Des?

  I did a lot of research but show me different thing. any japanese people can help me in this topic.

  Thank you very much

  If you can email me and i am very appreciate or you can reply here?

  i reply here instead of your pm so that all can view and discuss

  i m not japanese, i m chinese who learnt japanese

  We have to handle 2 issues which you brought up above separately

  The first issue is written "u" in standard Japanese is to be pronounced as "ɯ" as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and when it falls in the last syllable, it is pronounced very lightly but still audible

  The second issue relates to the "Devocalization Rule" of the Japanese language, which is as follows:

  whenever vowels "u" or "i" falls in between 2 unvoiced consonants, "u" and "i" loses it's voiced quality and behaves like the symbol "ɯ" in the International Phonetic Alphabet and it is pronounced very lightly in Japanese

  unvoiced consonants in Japanese = k, s, sh, t, ts, h, f, p
  voiced consonants in Japanese = m, n, r, y, w, g, z, j, d, b

  therefore ã�™ã��ã�§ã�™ (meaning "I like it" or "我喜欢") is transcribed into RÅ�maji as Su-ki-de-su, which effectively is pronounced as Sɯkidesɯ, according to the first issue, the final "ɯ" (written as "u") is pronounced lightly, and going by the explanation given to the second issue, there are 2 unvoiced consonants surrounding the "ɯ" (written as "u"), this "ɯ" (written as "u") will lose it's original voiced quality and becomes unvoiced, therefore most people can render it is Skides, but always remember, the length of each syllable is retained, therefore Skides will still be pronounced according to 4 syllable lengths (mora), we should pronounce it as S-ki-de-s.

  This is the one and only explanation.

  Please feel free to reply to query.

• Valenhar

  21 May 09, 15:59

  Hi Bangulzai,

   

  Thanks for your help. Now i am more clear about this issue.

  I am still consider about the pronounciation.

  For my concern, i want to put Suki Desu.

  people who learn japanese and they might pronounce it as Ski Des, But people who don't know and will peonounce it as Su Ki De Su.

  ���� can be Suki Desu and Ski Des ? either one?

  Anyone have idea on this matter,

  Which one will you like it? Suki Desu or Ski Des?

   

   

   

• Bangulzai

  21 May 09, 16:59

  Originally posted by Valenhar:

  Hi Bangulzai,

   

  Thanks for your help. Now i am more clear about this issue.

  I am still consider about the pronounciation.

  For my concern, i want to put Suki Desu.

  people who learn japanese and they might pronounce it as Ski Des, But people who don't know and will peonounce it as Su Ki De Su.

  ���� can be Suki Desu and Ski Des ? either one?

  Anyone have idea on this matter,

  Which one will you like it? Suki Desu or Ski Des?

  All depends on who is your target audience

  If the target audience is for Japanese karaoke singing session, you should put Su-ki-de-su as all the syllable are clearly pronounced while singing

  If the target audience is for long-term Japanese learning, you should also put Su-ki-de-su, for if you omit the vowels, it is going to create hindrance for future learning when they find out it is not what they should see normally

  If the target audience is for short-term tour in Japan, they you can safely put Ski Des, but please put a disclaimer on top saying "Approximate Pronunciations Given".

   

  The very main reason behind this current Japanese system of transliteration used is because of the few following reasons:

  1.  Not all Japanese dialects omit the "u".  It is only in standard Japanese which is based on the Tokyo and the dialects around Tokyo which has this pronounced effect of devocalising the "u".

  2.  "u" devocalising effect is only a recent linguistic phenomenon. In old Japanese text where Chinese pronunciations are imitated, "u" is a full vowel.  It is only starting from the China's Ming dynasty that "u" is becoming to show more of a "ɯ" character

  3.  In all transliteration system, phonemic and/or morphophonemic transliteration should be given a priority over a pure phonetic transliteration.  Pure phonetic transliteration (as what you have done when writing Ski Des) masked the linguistic rules which caused the phenomenon to happen.  Whereas a phonemic and/or morphophonemic transliteration (as in the current Su-ki-de-su) does not convey the actual standard Japanese-Tokyo pronunciation, a serious Japanese learner should in fact learn this form so that whatever future rule which applies to Japanese will continue to take effect.  By learning the "shortcut", the learner is going to take a big round-about way in the future.

   

  Therefore I suggest to use the current standard transliteration, and only secondary pointers in the beginning to aid the learners to apply the rules to get the pronunciations themselves.   Or always add the original transliteration for every item, then followed by brackets (example: approximate pronunciations: ski des).   The current standard transliteration should always come first.

   

  Please feel free to reply to query.

• Valenhar

  21 May 09, 17:18
• Bangulzai,

 

If i put Suki Des, will it be against the japanese culture or language?