Comments on: JapaneseFilter: How is 'fureai' pronounced?

Question: JapaneseFilter: How is 'fureai' pronounced?

coizero — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:14:26 -0800

How is fureai pronounced?

By: Nattie

Nattie — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:21:03 -0800

As best I can type out: foo-reh-ah-ee

By: birdsquared

birdsquared — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:27:33 -0800

I agree with Nattie except that the Japanese "f" sounds a lot like a 'hard h' - almost like a sigh - so, close to the "ph" in "phew" when sounded, not read. If that makes sense.

By: zardoz

zardoz — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:35:59 -0800

What Nattie said, and also note that Japanese words don't (for the most part) have stressed syllables, so say it with equal stress on each one.

By: troy

troy — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:36:54 -0800

[h]oo ray eye

The Japanese fu is a VERY soft F, almost H

By: Class Goat

Class Goat — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:39:40 -0800

The Japanese "f" sound in "fu" is pronounced about half-way between the English "fu" and English "hu".

The Japanese "r" sound in "re" is very difficult. It isn't really like the English "r". There's a lot of regional and class variation in how it's pronounced, but in general it's more like a Spanish "r" or German "r" than an English, or American, "r". Sometimes it's strongly rolled, but generally that's a "tough guy" affectation, something you'd hear from gangsters or from someone trying to sound like a thug. To untrained English ears "re" can almost sound like a softened "de" in some words in some regional accents.

With those caveats, Nattie's pronunciation is right.

Also, Japanese as a language has a strong cadence. All four of those syllables are equally stressed and each of them takes the same length of time. And the successive vowels should not be treated as a diphthong, though some small degree of slurring between them is inevitable. The vowels are distinct and should be pronounced that way.

By: troy

troy — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:45:42 -0800

The ending is not ah-ee but the single syllable あい "eye", or most accurately, the pronoun "I"

of course CG is right about the "re" being half like "lay", but when saying fureai a harder 'r' sound is not noticeable IMO.

By: Class Goat

Class Goat — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:16:01 -0800

あい isn't a single syllable, quite, because it occupies two cadence times. In this particular word, the fure part and the ai part would each take half the total pronunciation interval.

Also, if you ask a linguist he'll tell you that Japanese doesn't have any diphthongs. Myself, I don't think that's true, and あい is the closest Japanese comes to one.

By: Class Goat

Class Goat — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:31:20 -0800

That cadence thing gets to me sometimes. The word 場合 baai (which means "case" or "situation") sounds strange to my ears because the "ah" sound goes on for a long time.

But if the "ah" wasn't lengthened it would be 倍 bai (which means "twice" or "double").

And I don't think that there's an "eye" diphthong in the pronunciation of baai. At least it doesn't sound that way to me.

By: troy

troy — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:33:05 -0800

^ heh, I recorded "fureai" and looked at it in Audacity, and yes, the fure and the ai are equal beats.

the "eye" in hoo-ray-eye is more like eye-eee

By: troy

troy — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:40:46 -0800

Uploaded my pronunciation to youtube

By: Sitegeist

Sitegeist — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:03:57 -0800

With regard to the first syllable 'fu':

The Japanese sound series はひふへほ is romanised as ha, hi, fu, he, ho.

The reason that the third sound is indicated as more like an f is because of the effect of the following vowel u. The u sound in Japanese is said with lips somewhat compressed. This affects the preceding consonant in a process called affrication. That is, the sound becomes a fricative - in this case the voiceless bilabial fricative.

This is still different from the f in English which involves the lower lips and the top teeth. In the Japanese f, the teeth are not involved. Only the lips which are not brought fully together. It's probably easier to still think of it as an h but with lips closer together so that turbulence in the air stream results - i.e. a fricative.