Japanese Pronunciation
By: Scott Brady
As a native English speaker hearing non-natives (especially Asians) trying to speak the English language I sometimes can’t help but chuckle, or cry, over the way they slaughter the words. It works the opposite as well as English speakers have a hard time with Japanese pronunciation. As I presently reside in Japan and understand the Japanese writing system I have come to understand, in one word, why they tear apart the English language... Katakana!
Katakana is one of the four Japanese writing systems. The other systems being Kanji (the characters ((not cartoon)) you see on tattoos), Hiragana, and Romaji (the Roman alphabet). The early Japanese written language came from China. This system is called Kanji. Through the development of the Japanese language it became necessary to implement Hiragana which is used for words of Japanese origin and Katakana to help in the pronunciation of Kanji.
Still further into the evolution of the Japanese written language, Katakana
started being used to help Japanese people pronounce borrowed words from other
languages. At this time, the language which has the most borrowed words
transcribed into Japanese is English. It is important to note that the Japanese
language does not contain the sounds “L”, “R”, “V”, “Si” (as in “See”), “Hu” (as
in “Hoop”), “Th” (as in “Thank”), and “Zi” (as in Zebra). There are a few other
phonetic sounds that are not originally contained in the Japanese language, but
through the further development of the Katakana writing system the Japanese
people are able to pronounce the foreign sounds almost like a native speaker.
Another point worth noting is that the Japanese system phonetically combines two
of our English sounds per character with the exception of the “N” sound. As an
example of this let’s take my name “Scott” and assault it with the Katakana
system. “Su Ko Tto” is the basic end result of my name in Japanese. You can see
the extra “U” and “O” have been added because of the two sounds per character
from the Katakana writing system. Actually if I am to say my name as it should
be pronounced the Japanese perceive it as the word “Skirt”. Yes, many young
children have had their fun with my name in this respect.
You may think that the Romaji system would save the Japanese from needlessly
abusing the English language but it does not. Though Japanese children are
taught the Roman alphabet at a fairly young age, their school teachers almost
always teach them the alphabet’s pronunciation utilizing Katakana because 1: it
is easier to teach the children that way and 2: the Japanese teachers are not
able to make the correct distinction and pronunciation themselves.
As children grow up without knowing the correct phonetic pronunciation of the
English words they gradually lose the ability to hear and differentiate between
them. Soon enough words like “Rice” and “Lice”, “Sip” and “Ship”, “Than” and
“Dan”, become the same to the Japanese ear. Though the famous tongue twister may
be difficult for us, hearing a Japanese pronunciation of “She shells she shells by
the she shore” over and over again (and thinking they are saying it properly) is
quite humorous.
What should we do about this? Put an end to English words being transcribed by
the Katakana writing system. Have well qualified and preferably native English
speakers teach Japanese children the actual sounds of the Roman alphabet. If we
work together we may just be able to put a stop to the Japanese abuse of the
English language.
About the Author:
Scott Brady works for a translation company in Fukuoka, Japan. He works under http://www.translators.jp/english/index.html and manages http://www.samurai-translators.com. Source: www.isnare.com
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