Having previously spent almost a decade living in Japan, I can affirm that Japanese speakers tend to encounter extreme challenges with English pronunciation.
A prevalent issue among Japanese learners is the struggle to differentiate between the sounds /l/ and /r/. In Japanese, a sound that falls between these two English sounds is utilized, as evident in words like “ramen”. Furthermore, Japanese speakers frequently face challenges in distinguishing the sounds /w/ and /v/, leading to the pronunciation of imported words like “veteran” as “beteran”. The difficulty with the /w/ sound stems from the challenge of rounding the lips, a characteristic of native English pronunciation. In addition, Japanese only has five vowel sounds compared to the twenty vowel sounds of BBritish English. Japanese is mora timed. Each mora (a unit of sound smaller than a syllable) is perceived to have roughly equal timing, unlike English which is stress-timed.
These challenges are just the tip of the iceberg. Anyone who has spent significant time in Japan as a native English speaker is likely familiar with the issues that Japanese people face with English pronunciation. Recognising these differences is one thing; effectively addressing them is another.
Pronunciation extends beyond the placement of the tongue, the lips and mouth; it involves understanding how to produce sounds with the correct aspiration. Japanese speakers tend to transition rapidly from one syllable to the next, creating a constant start-stop mechanism that controls airflow from the back of the mouth. This is part of the character of the mora-timed language of Japanese. In contrast, English sounds are typically more aspirated, emphasising the use of the lungs. When speaking English, one can feel the diaphragm being pushed down and released as we speak. You can often observe this when Americans speak Japanese. They have the opposite problem in that they tend to over aspirate Japanese words and names.
For Japanese people who wish to enhance their English pronunciation can begin with an understanding of the basic mechanics of speech. I encourage my students to focus on the following areas:
- Study the basic building blocks of speech. Use the International Phonetic Alphabet to recognise the sounds.
- Spend more time listening to the language rather than trying to speak the language. This is a problem that causes many Japanese people to sound Japanese when they speak English. They have spent too much time on their output rather than listening to the sounds spoken by native speakers.
- Watch how native English speakers aspirate the sounds of English compared to the manner in which Japanese people aspirate the sounds of Japanese. Do you notice how when Japanese people speak Japanese they tend to move less? Ask yourself why.
Simply repeating words or expressions in the hope that practice will lead to perfection may lead to disappointment.
It’s important to take a step back, observe the sounds around us and pay more attention how we articulate these sounds.