Little Pronunciation “Trick”

nihongokudasai:

Really short post.

So, I came clean about my absolutely dreadful speaking skills a couple weeks ago, right? I made a breakthrough, and it may be obvious to some, but I never, ever noticed or even thought of this since I started studying Japanese in 2014.

When you speak, there’s a relatively easy way to sound a tad more natural.

When you take pauses, you take pauses between clauses. It’s a little difficult to explain, so I’ll just illustrate it.

So, take this sentence –

今日は寒いから、私はジャケットを着ている。kyou wa samui kara, watashi wa jaketto o kite iru.
I’m wearing a jacket because it’s cold today. [Because today is cold, I’m wearing a jacket.]

When pronouncing this, you want to put your little breath-pauses (is that a thing?) in this pattern:

今日は / 寒いから、/ 私は / ジャケットを着ている。

So basically, word + particle, word + particle, and so on.

I seriously cannot believe I never noticed this. It’s kind of like a foundational touchstone for sounding more natural. 

Anyway, this is called 文節（ぶんせつ）。It kind of reminds me of poetry scansion. Actually, it’s exactly like that. It’s a “basic linguistic unit that comprises a phrase, which are [a sentence’s] smallest coherent components.” So if that helps you, think of it like scansion, but a lot easier than identifying iambic pentameter.

So….yeah. That concludes my post. Have a good Wednesday night, everyone!