1.7. Consonants

      In the structural system of every language, a given sound is made in somewhat different ways, depending on what sounds precede and follow it. If you hold your hand very close to your mouth and say the word pan clearly and naturally, you will feel a slight puff of breath; on the other hand, if you say span or ban, you will not feel the puff of breath. A more effective demonstration is to light a match and hold it close. Those consonants with a puff of breath will put the match out; those without will merely make it flicker. This puff of breath is called ASPIRATION; consonants accompanied by it are said to be ASPIRATED. English p, t, ch, and k (often spelled with the letter c as in cat) are aspirated in initial position, but not after the consonant s. Compare the two words in each of the following pairs:

      pin and spin

      tick and stick

      charge and discharge

      key and ski

      In final position, English p, t, and k may be either aspirated or unaspirated, or not released at all.

      Now in Japanese, the consonants p, t, ch, and k are usually somewhat aspirated as in English, but the aspiration is not so heavy. The Japanese consonants are UNASPIRATED when they are double (that is, long). Since the corresponding En­glish double consonants are aspirated as in hip pocket, part-time, night chief, and bookkeepers, you should give special attention to suppressing the puff of breath when you make the Japanese double consonants.

      Another characteristic of Japanese double consonants, including ss, ssh, as well as pp, tt, tch, kk—is the special TENSENESS with which they are pronounced. It is as if the Japanese speaker tightened up his throat in order to hold on and get in that extra syllable represented by the first of the consonants.

      Listen to the difference between the single and double consonants in the following examples, then imitate them, being very careful to hold the first of the double consonants for a full syllable’s duration and then release it tight and clear with no puff of air.

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      Just as the difference between long and short vowels is very important to make your Japanese understandable, so is the difference between long and short consonants.

      One other point about aspiration. In English we do not aspirate a consonant after s. But in Japanese, when the syllable su is reduced to just a syllabic s (as in Ikaga desu ka.), a following p, t, or k still has the slight aspiration it would have in initial position. Notice the difference in pronunciation between English ski, one syllable, no aspiration—and Japanese suki ‘likes’—two syllables, with u unvoiced or dropped, but with slight aspiration of k.

      Consonants are usually described in terms of the WAY they are pronounced (voiced, voiceless; aspirated, unaspirated; etc.) and the PLACE they are pronounced. In general, Japanese uses about the same places in the mouth as English—b, p, and m are made with the lips, and k and g with the back of the tongue against the soft part of the roof of the mouth. However, t, d, and n are all made farther front than the English equivalents. For these sounds in English, most of us touch the front of the tongue or the tip (or both) against the ridge BEHIND the teeth, or even farther back than that. But in Japanese, the tongue is pushed forward against the teeth themselves. This gives the Japanese sounds—called DENTAL consonants—a sharper quality; the English sounds—called ALVEOLAR consonants (after the alveolar ridge behind the teeth)—sound dull and indistinct to a Japanese. Notice the difference between sounds in certain Japanese and English words:

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      The Japanese consonants s, z, sh, ch, and j are also pronounced somewhat more FRONT than many American speakers pronounce the English equivalents. Since the American sounds are farthest front in words like see, zeal, sheep, cheap, and jeep, it may help to think of the sounds in these words. Some Japanese give the j a sound rather like that used by the French in Jacques or by some Americans in azure, garage, and rouge. (At the beginning of a word, many Japanese pronounce z as if it were spelled dz; in slow over-precise speech, you may hear the dz version even in the middle of a word.)

      Be careful how you pronounce the Japanese. English f is made with the lower lip against the upper teeth. The Japanese place both lips close together (as if about to make a p or a b or as if about to whistle) and then let the air come out in a puff between. A Japanese f, then, is an f WITHOUT ANY TEETH. Occasionally you will hear a Japanese person use an ordinary h instead of this f.

      Japanese voiced consonants (b, d, z, j, g, m, n) are more fully voiced than English initial voiced consonants. In English we start off somewhat lazily with the voicing, giving our vocal cords an instant to warm up. It is only between vowels, rabbit, lady, dizzy, tiger, coming, and inning, that we voice these sounds all the way through. Japanese warm their vocal cords up an instant before they start to make the sound and this gives their voiced consonants a bit more prominence than ours.

      The Japanese consonant g has two pronunciations. In Southern Japan it is usually pronounced like g in English go (but of course never like g in gem because that sound would be written j). In Northern Japan, many people pronounce the g always like the English sound in sing or singer. In Tokyo, there is a compromise. The general rule is: initial in a word, pronounce as in go; within a word, pronounce as in singer. There are a few exceptions to this rule. The particle ga is always pronounced with the ng sound, and the element go meaning ‘five’ is usually pronounced like English go even within a word, but these are of minor importance.

      You may have trouble with this ng sound. It is made with the tongue in the same