Should your 'Japanese voice' sound different?
2023 ж. 11 Жел.
224 114 Рет қаралды
Learn Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation from my Patreon Series "Japanese Phonetics"
/ dogen
Dogen / Dōgen / Japanese / 日本語 / Should your 'Japanese voice' sound different? / Japanese speaking style vs. English speaking style / Japanese voice vs. English voice
it’s so funny how i’m so used to dogen speaking japanese in this background setting that when he’s recording himself speaking english it feels like an american dubbed version lmao
I don't know if it's for the same reason, but his signs with hands feel kind of Japanese to me too?
No I clicked on the video and he started talking and I was NOT prepared 🤣 I was like “WHO ARE YOU?!”
I appreciate the difference you demonstrate between Patreon voice and KZhead voice.
Lmfaoo… I noticed it but didn’t realize what it was until you said it.
😂😂😂
"ONCE AGAIN I NEED YOU...."
Reminds me of an anecdote I heard from Stephen Krashen recently. He was talking about a boy who really hated French class at school, so he went in to his oral exam wearing a beret, wine glass in hand, putting on a highly exaggerated French accent in order to try and mock the teachers. But the teachers ended up loving it, asking him why he wasn't as good as that during class. It seemed to be that leaning into the stereotypical features of the language and "getting into character" made him more convincing and natural.
the only issue i see is that this could get racist really fast if not done right. lol
I have a similar story: I am not a native English speaker. Once, I was joking with an English native speaker friend, pretending to be doing NatGeo documentary, and made what I thought was an exaggerated English accent. I soon realized that I was sounding much better than my usual speaking voice, so after that I realized that I should pronounce words not in the way my Brazilian brain thinks they should be said, but in the way that English speakers do.
@@jackaleope I think if you care enough to genuinely attempt to learn a language youll be okay
huh cool
i would do this (the accent part) when i had french classes and it did help my pronunciation. i think when we do accents, we're subconsciously selecting the most significant phonetic and phonotactic features
I'm German, and when I'm talking in English, people told me I talk in a deeper voice.
It doesn't even have to go that far. My voice changes when switching between different German dialects and I think this video made me better realize why.
Interesting. Typically, people talk deeper in German than in English. English has a high tone as a manner to sound ... non-threatening. It can be a very nasally language. German is just naturally more from the diaphragm, I think. I have the complete other trend. My voice drops a register when I talk in German compared to Dutch/French/English.
Contrary to some folks.calling it angry. German has a lot of lifts. So I could see that.
@@ShannovianAnecdotally, I can agree with that. When speaking English, my voice automatically goes a bit higher than when I pronounce a similar phrase in German, especially in the middle-to-end of the sentence. I don't think it sounds nasal, though - to appropriate some terms from singing, I think English leans more towards "head voice" and German more towards "chest voice" in principle.
@@fearnach that's backwards from what they said.
My natural tongue is Scottish English and I have an incredibly deep voice. When trying to learn Japanese I was told that my Japanese sounded menacing, as my voice is so resonant. I was told by my teacher that I sounded like I was angry or had a threatening tone. I think the harder guttural consonants sounds that come to me naturally as a Scot, make me sound incredibly harsh to Japanese ears. Needless to say I dropped the class. I don’t want to terrify native speakers😀
Also got told by my teacher that I sound not sweet and angry in japanese :(
I’m from Dundee with a very deep voice too and was told I sounded very authoritative, like one of those gruff patriarchal voices you hear in yakuza movies (which I secretly love). I’ll sometimes really lean into it with a booming “so desu nae” like I’m about to chew their head off. After the initial shock I usually get a good laugh out of native speakers 😂🤣
Scottish accents have a _rhotic_ "R," resulting in more rolled R's, which even contrasts with most British accents. In Japanese culture, rolled R's are most commonly done by literal gangsters (but also some roughneck tough guys) who are trying to intimidate. This could contribute to the cultural confusion. Also, if you're not trying to intimidate Japanese, be sure to never use the phrase, "huh?" since Japanese almost exclusively use it the way we in English would say, "[what] the fuck did you just say to me?!" (like challenging the other and trying to make them back down), especially since this is in a society where ordinary polite confrontation is already considered intimidating. Japanese R's are pronounced with a light tongue flick, which is almost the polar opposite to rolled R's. To end on some positivity, I like some Scottish accents; most of the people I've heard online (ranging from Twitch streamers (one of whom from Aberdeen), to Sean the Scottish travel vlogger to the SNP David Linden(?) not being understood at parliament), so know that some non-Scots do like how you sound. I'll cheer for all of you! @uremawifenowdave @_koronkowy @Bergkatse2
[‘Throw the R Away’ intensifies in the background]
Trying to sound like Toshiro Mifune can have its benefits though. :)
I don't really know how to explain it but when they said 「日本に行きたいです」 in the English speaking style it really sounded like they were saying 「ニホンニイキタイデス」
In Japanese comics, often when a character is speaking in a foreign accent their dialogue will actually be written in katakana like that. Especially if the author is trying to emphasize that the accent is super thick hard to understand. So you're not wrong about it sounding like that lol
@@lucillehatfield6177 Yes I know about that, this is about more than the accent in this case tough.
That's mad interesting.
We basically use katakana in foreign words, so we describe the foreigner speaking as katakana because of its exotic sound. Also katakana give us keener feeling than hiragana does, so katakana is qualify to describe foreign speaking.
HAHAHAH
I completely understand. I sound really confident when using English, and my voice is higher when speaking Japanese, and become overly polite. My wife talks in high cute voice in Japanese, but becomes a monster with English.
A monster? Damn
monster?! でも低音はいいじゃん？😏
What's funny is Dogen's voice does the opposite in my ear. It's why I prefer his Japanese-language skits. I find his vocal quality in English to be abrasive and unpleasant, but he sounds smooth and manly in Japanese. The kind of voice I'd want to read an audiobook to me.
😂
A monster? Caramba!
My mom is Japanese who has lived in the US for most of her life. When I finally went to Japan with her, I could tell she sounded different than everyone else even if I couldn't understand much. My Japanese cousins called her the American aunt. I think she must have developed an American accent which was apparent when she spoke. However, by the end of two weeks, she started to blend in more. I guess her 'Japanese voice' came back to her!
My psychological hypothesis for this: developing a persona specific to a language is a necessary sub-process of attaining native-level skill at that language. In the early stages you're just learning a language, but to be comparable to natives you must adopt the spirit of a different culture. Nobody's mind exists in a vacuum. Edit/Addendum: Dogen as always is coming from a very technical/practical angle, which is why we love him. But I think most of it will come to you naturally during the process of assimilatong into the culture.
I guess it can be a useful mental trick, but I think one of his final points is that it's more that you're adapting to the cultural aspects of speech that vary from place to place than actually adapting your own personality. Not saying that those (personality and culture) are completely disjoint from each other ofc.
@@ikbintom That's honestly just a different way of describing the same thing tbh. We adapt to environments and cultures, and some would define that as different personas
Different languages have different tools and you will project on people of that language differently. You want to be perceived in a certain way by others. That's why hearing your own voice can be daunting for a lot of people when that illusion is shattered. The other language's culture will also have different norms and interpret moods differently and so you conglomerate an ideal image of yourself and mimic that as best you can.
@@rasurin This feels kinda like how you tend to change your talking style and even pattern of thought somewhat around different friend groups
@Randomness65535 agree with your hypothesis. I agree that in order to sound more natural, you need to adopt a vocal persona for a language, not just Japanese. I think this is more noticeable for women with English and Japanese, because polite Japanese is usually spoken with a higher pitch by women. Agree that this persona is influenced by differences in culture.
Trilingual speaker here: I often find that because I use English in daily professional environment, my English voice is often rather calm and smooth. In Cantonese, I’m very abrupt and loud and completely informal. I also speak Japanese but learned it through academic and working environment. I definitely default to proper Japanese a lot and am very much less colloquial. However I have learned to code switch with friends for more informal Japanese. It is fascinating to see how my personality seems to change but I find it more a product of my environment and who I am talking to. I also have reason to believe because of my background in Cantonese I do pick up the differences in the tones a lot more so I really try to match the sounds I think are appropriate to the language.
I find it super hard to speak Canto in a formal way or use proper formal words when speaking (well esp bc written is ofc different) but also bc i learned it through listening to others talking casually with each other or on the street … in HK… so yeah 😂 feel u on that one
yea same, canto I mostly use w family (most r p bad at english), so I'm p informal also apparently a bunch of the things I say sound like old ppl speaking since a bunch of the phrases aren't popular nowadays lmao
I'm native Danish, but I mostly use English in my daily life. I find that my Danish is far more formal than my English since I mostly use Danish with my family and in Uni, while I use English for almost everything else, including my inner monologue. I can also switch to a formal code in English now but I've learned it later. Now that I am learning Japanese I am deliberately going out of my way to learn both a casual style with colloquialisms and a more formal. Eventually I'm going to try my hand with Kenjougo and Sonkeigo as speaking styles as well rather than just individual word, but not yet.
Interesting! That reminds me of how Joey the Anime man's personality changes whenever he is talking to Japanese people in Japanese
Honestly I’m surprised he didn’t mention how every single Japanese example seems to have a higher Pitch. That was the most noticeable difference to me. But genuinely such a good video. I learned a lot here :D
yes, I want to hear this addressed!
I do think a lot of people have higher pitch in japanese for whatever reason, but I've also seen plenty of people who sound lower and smoother. I think it's more often to have pitch raised but, definitely not the only thing that happens.
Well, my pitch in Japanese is surprisingly much lower than it is in any of the languages I'm native in, of which there are 3, one being English. Being a woman, I honestly thought the reason was smoking, for quite a while. But having given up smoking 4 months ago, I no longer have any explanation on why my pitch in Japanese is at least an octave lower than any of the other languages I know.
I’m natively bilingual in English and Japanese, my voice tends to lower! I feel like Japanese is spoken further back in the throat than the nasally by comparison English
@@aubreydjk I feel like the main reason for it is increased vocal tension in order to maintain a homogenous flow of energy through the vocal cords, as well as the fact that going higher makes it easier to soften your voice and/or nasalize
I'm a native Portuguese speaker, and with Portuguese being a mostly "nasally spoken" language, I've had people comment with me about how my voice changes when I speak English lol, I've replied to them about this difference and how English kinda "comes out of your throat" a bit more whereas Portuguese "comes out of your nose"
BR ou PT? Digo isso pois tenho uma pergunta: você teve uma certa facilidade com o「ね」por ele se parecer com o "né?" dito por brasileiros no final de uma pergunta?
I don't know if you are Portuguese or Brazilian, but it's also worth mentioning Brazilian Portuguese is very melodic, way more than English
@@AddlerMartin Brasileiro desu Sim, o ね foi fácil de aprender, mas pra pegar o jeito que usam, só ouvindo bastante input de japonês mesmo
@@untilm I'm Brazilian, but I honestly have a hard time getting what people mean when they say it's melodic, hahah Thinking now, maybe that is the sound of other regions of Brazil, where they vary the "notes" (as in musical notes) or pitch wildly for each syllable in a sentence... I am from Rio Grande do Sul, and I think our tendency is to speak in a single note for the better part of a sentence.
@@arsnakehert Oh, a fellow Gaúcho! Bah!
英語を学んでいる日本人の立場からして、発音だけでなく発声方法にも差があるという考察はとても面白いと感じました。 個人的には、アメリカ英語はリラックスというよりむしろ、音の強弱(イントネーション)を重視しているのが差につながっているんじゃないかとも思えました。
周波数違うのも、発音方法も差があるのは事実なので考察というのは不適格だと思います
イギリス英語だと全く音の感じが違うのが面白いですよね。同じ英語なはずですが。アメリカ英語はとりわけ音が後ろからでディープです。女の人はみーんなハスキー😅
自分は両言語ともネイティブでこう言う言語の特徴の差とか言語学的な観点が好きでDogenさんを見ているんですが、英語と日本語だったらこの動画で言ってたように日本語を喋る時は絶対喉からくるような高音で話すのに比べて英語は腹からくる、なんて言うか、低音じゃないけど言葉をどれだけ効率よく発音できるかのような点に集中して話すような気がして面白いなと個人的に思いましたね。
はいはい、私も
Your phonetics content is so powerful, bringing clarity to small details that learners often subconsciously implement.
I'm from Belgium and one thing that is noticeable, about how language influences culture, is that Dutch or German speakers tend to let people finish their phrases/finish speaking and don't inturrupt other peoplle as much as French speaking people is because the verb in Duth or German is at the end of the phrase which is why people are much more likely to let you finish talking to get the full meaning of what you're saying wheras French has the verb at the beginning of a phrase so people are more likely to cut you off as they usually understand what you want to say with just the basic beginning part of a phrase and that the later part of the phrase is usually complementary information.
As a fully Dutchman with French family this is a pretty interesting take actually. Our mother who is from a family of 7 siblings and 2 parents and then learned French after moving there has the annoying habit of just never letting anyone finish their sentences. Resulting in mostly just not getting what the other person says. She then fills it in herself with the wrong answers. After doing this 3 times in a row in 1 sentence people just let her have it and they stop trying to say what they really mean. This is my mother but this is one of the dumbest things I have seen in people bar none. My French siblings are also like this and they are confused why they rarely understand what I want to say. Personally I just call it rudeness which they learned from our mother because she already had this trait from her family. Where just nobody ever lets someone else finish their sentences and everyone is just talking through each other, supposedly because they were with so many. And then they don't get it so it doesn't really work in my opinion.
As a French person with ADHD you're now making me doubt whether i finish people's sentences because of ADHD or being French.
@@Dice-Z well, it could play a role but as a Belgian person with ADHD, who grew up speaking both French and Dutch, I can tell you that when you feel you have to say something before you forget it, you'll cut people off in both languages 😅 but thinking about it, I may be more concentrated on what is being said or what I'm reading when it's in Dutch compared to something in French 🤔
I was teased a little bit for using a different voice when speaking Japanese, however I just explained that for different languages, I have to use different parts of my throat to get the pronunciations right. And so doing that happens to change my voice a little as well.
As an ESL speaker and Lusophone, I find your description of the styles quite interesting - while I agree that "clear, consistent, and orderly" are valid attributes for the Japanese style, I would also say it possesses the attributes "relaxed" and "open" much more than the American style. The latter feels much more constrictive and relies more strongly on the throat for vocalization (which isn't as present in Portuguese).
Native lusophone ESL speaker here too, I've heard comments before about how my voice changes between Portuguese and English, and I've explained to them that the sounds in Portuguese go through your nose a little bit, whereas in English they do indeed go more through your throat so to speak
I think it’s interesting that when the Japanese speaking style speaks English, for me they sound more sympathetic or gentle, making the English speaking style seem more direct and factual. I think in English I was taught to enunciate certain consonants clearly like ‘k’ and ‘g’ which if carried over to speaking Japanese makes it sound too rough. It’s interesting to observe details like this when speaking.
I'm a native English speaker, And I'd describe japanese as less relaxed because of the fact they tend to use a higher pitch which requires a tighter airway and because they tend to have a fixed length for each syllable Many native English speakers almost sigh out their words, which I'd say is very relaxed sounding . We also tend to kinda let words shorten or lengthen as needed to speak most efficiently
I have done karaoke timing, and I have to say Japanese speakers make it a lot easier to split vowels (and you can see them on the spectrum display, while with English it's mostly a garbled mess and you have to guess a bit arbitrarily where to split (or just don't bother and put them together). I think it's great to have something more researched that shows this isn't just a feeling and there's proper research on this.
When vowels are next to each other in Japanese, they always have hiatus between them, while in English, hiatus is never allowed. So in English there will either be a Y sound or W sound in between the two vowels (for example you can hear the "w" in vowel and a "y" in hiatus). And if one word ends with a vowel sound and the next one begins with a vowel sounds, British people will add in an R sound and Americans will add in a glottal stop
This is one of the reasons why learning a foreign language is so worthwhile! Exploring different aspects of your own personality through words and intonation really is fascinating.
This topic is crucial to anyone who speaks a foreign language (not necessarily Japanese, as Dogen adequately notes) or who is remotely interested on why the voice might sound differnt when speaking another tongue. Great analysis!
Me learning from Touhou music mixes and gaining the accent and articulation of a Japanese songstress
When I speak: Formal English:Pewdiepie accent Informal:Mix of various dialects Formal Portuguese:High voice Nerd trying to look modest and smart at the same time Informal:Deep voiced Iliterate Formal Japanese: High voiced soft spoken suckup (imitate least conflict avoidant japanese office worker) (sometimes speech feels like women's speech) Informal:middle aged man who switches between kansai and standard dialect and intonation mid sentences. (Also no Keigo or regard for social standings)
Can confirm. As a a multilingual speaker (6 total), my Japanese voice does change the most from my English voice, which is also slightly different from my other languages. With Japanese, I find that (especially as a woman) my tone leans towards "more interested/engaged in whatever we're talking about" and possibly even more deferential, as that's just the Japanese culture/social expectation of how people speak to one another. There's more deference than Western languages. You can insist on speaking as you do in English but you just end up sounding quite "rough".
I feel this, in America it's cool to not care not care about things, but if you speak that way in Japanese it's really irreverent.
@@generikadeyo Exactly. IMO every culture has traits that can be placed on a continuum (eg. how direct/indirect is the language/interactions, how earnest/aloof is socially acceptable/the norm, etc.) If you internalise these cultural norms, you often just inevitably end up with a different voice without even trying.
As a Russian, I wonder how speaking my mother tongue would feel for you if English is perceived as rough haha😁 Eastern slavs can often come off as really raw even when interacting with complete strangers. Russian and Japanese are kind of opposite in that regard, with English being in the middle between in terms of politeness filter. At least, that's how I see it, having sailed English internet for a while and currently learning Japanese language! It's also fascinating that while cultural codes of interaction can be so vastly different, beneath the surface of sounding more engaged or rough, lie the same human characteristics, same fundamental human desires. People want to be respected and understood, be treated well -- even if expression of all that varies from culture to culture.
Which 6?
@@OneNamelessHeroRussian is an interesting one. Whilst I know the stereotype is that it's "rough sounding" (and I've heard it spoken in such a way - to my ears) I'd also dated a Russian for about 2 years and man, I loooved the way the language sounded when he and his mum were talking to one another. I could listen to them all day. (He wasn't from Moscow; quite a bit east of it, though I know that's still very vague...) It's the same with Arabic; stereotype is that it's "harsh-sounding" but to my ears it sounds beautiful and maybe being immersed in it for a good long stretch of time whilst in Egypt helped but honestly, if I had another lifetime just to learn languages, Arabic and Russian would make the top of the list. As for English, I think it sits somewhere in the middle of whether it sounds "rough" but my reference in the original comment was more about how deferential/polite it sounds relative to Japanese (ie. not very, and therefore nowhere as refined).
Thank you so much Dogen! This is really helpful 💕
This is amazing Dogen! Thank you!
I forgot you're so fluent in English,too.
Dogen got eigo jozu'ed
@@HaohmaruHL Sugoi des Ne!
This video convinced me to buy the whole course. I'm only a year in to learning Japanese but I've never come across something so detailed and well thought out as this. This is an invaluable resource. Consider me a patron!
Thank you very much Alex! Hope that you find the rest of the course useful as well!
That was fascinating. The creaky voice really jumped out at me once you pointed it out. Your speaker sounded so much *nicer* using the Japanese speaking style than she did using the American English speaking style. It's remarkable how perceptible such a subtle difference can be.
She sounded almost annoyed in English lol
I had a similar feeling when listening to various announcements (trains, etc.) while visiting Japan. Everything sounded so _pleasant_ (even though I barely know any Japanese so understood nothing).
This was super cool! Thanks for sharing!
I can't quite articulate how helpful this video was, but it feels in one regard as if it's an "awakening" moment of sorts or an epiphany! I had already decided that I was going to sign up for your Japanese Phonetics patron series, but now I'm going to go for a yearly subscription rather than the monthly subscription I had previously decided on all to express the gratitude I have for this new joy! Happy holidays and thank you!
thank you for posting this! i was always curious but kinda justified it as "thats just how it is"
Thank you Dogen San this blew my mind!
This video is amazing. Thank you!
OMGsh Dogen, this was a revelation! Thanks for posting this! I’d like to think of myself as an amateur linguist, and while I’ve run across many of the points you make here (especially in my Japanese Language learning journey), I’ve never heard of “vocal fry”, despite being American and hearing it all my life! It’s not something that’s ever really brought to our attention. Generally I’m also one to switch my voice - and possibly my mannerisms as well - up a bit when I speak Japanese. I’ve always likened it to changing gears on a bike. I’m pretty sure this is mostly because I had native Japanese instructors and have spent a good deal of time in Japan. Also, kudos to the speaker you had in here : she’s really pointed up how bright and cheerful Japanese can sound as opposed to relaxed (lazy, maybe?) and even “brutal” American pronunciation can sound. Cheers man! Great video!
Esl teacher here. The main difference I could hear was that the English accent was moving from the schwa position to the Japanese vowel position and then relaxing back to the schwa position. This is something I've noticed about the way I speak other languages as well actually and I need to "cut" the schwa short to avoid showing my English accent. I have a personal theory that many English speakers use the "H" positioning and just add voice to that to make schwa sound. This is why the easiest way to suss out an English person's level in Japanese is to ask them to say "harajuku". The movement between sounds here is so delicate since you're moving from one sound to the next where naturally you'd join the sounds together with the schwa in English but don't in Japanese. This is also why the Japanese accent in English tends to sound a little staccato since they are cutting the usual vowel associations from the consonants.
thanks dogen !!!!! happy holidays !
It's great to have such a clear video on the topic, through my many years of learning too many languages I absolutely noticed this and it's a key part in properly adapting to a language. As an aside, this makes me think of how i find a lot of English VA for anime themed things fairly grating, it feels at times like they're really trying to mimic Japanese and it sounds off.
Yeah I definitely agree with that last part. It's one reason I tend to like the English dubs for older 90s anime much more, because you can tell they weren't trying too hard, which ironically kind of makes it work more. Like, back then they were dubbing them basically as if they were American cartoons, which just ends up coming off more natural for English voice actors often times. Nowadays, it's like they try so hard to capture the feeling of the Japanese dialogue and it doesn't always sound natural in another language.
Funny you come to that conclusion because mine was the opposite, that they are trying to sound too much like typical cartoon characters and not enough using japanese style intonations and such. Either way dubs are just grating.
This is brilliantly done
Dogen, you are my first Patreon. After this video I'm ready to take my Japanese phonetics more serious. I've been taking lessons online for 8 months now and the teacher keeps correcting my pitch accents and even when I pronounce things exactly as they are supposed to be I can see that she is not sure I was speaking correctly. Thank you for making this content and giving us a way to learn from it. ありがとうございます！
This may be different for others, but for me, a huge part of learning a language, specifically the accent and naturality is thinking; I try to formulate thoughts in my new language as soon as I am able to and that accelerates naturalization of my expressions a lot.
this is SO interesting and the nuances between the concepts of two speaking styles are just fascinating. I feel like this is totally not about accent and feel the sudden realization. damn, it’s just really interesting, the whole language thing. thanks for doing this Dogen san.
I'm brazilian, and always noticed that when I speak english my voice is lower, better enunciated, and almost like a narrator. Same thing for japanese. I think it simply might be because I'm trying to speak in a language I'm not as comfortable as my mother tongue, even though I'm still fluent.
That's super cool xD Isso é muito legal I'm also fluent in Japanese and English, and recently started learning Brazilian Portuguese. だから縁を感じてさ、ついコメントしてみたわけです☆ワラ Eu senti uma vontade de comentar,kkkk (I had an urge to comment, I used GPT4 for this one, is it correct? lol)
Aposto tbm que teu inglês é mais correto que o português, pq pelo menos eu, meu português falado num é metade do meu inglês, e olha que ele já não é lá essas coisas kkkkkkk
também sou brasileiro, e minha voz é umas 10x melhor em inglês pareço realmente um narrador kkkk
@@FakeLewis pior que é ksksks eu fico falando TD errado, provavelmente com sotaque forte, já no inglês eu falo gíria e TD mais mas acabo tomando cuidado pra ficar mais certinho
Sou brasileira também, and when I talk in english my voice becomes a little more deep and sharp, I can't really explain. But is definitely different when I talk in português
Very good video. Really high quality
what a phenomenal video!
Thanks for the video :)
I completely understand, now! Thank you, Dogen! With this video, I've discovered that I look very tired, but that I also desperately wish to travel to Japan. Jokes aside, I think you did a good job at explaining how to 'sound' more culturally close when speaking a language, like you've grown up there and it's 'natural' for you to speak that way.
This is mad interesting. I noticed how I sound in general changes between languages, but had no idea why or if it's normal. I think I just subconsciously started making the same sounds I heard.
Thank you for sharing this video
This is honestly the most helpful video on youtube I have ever seen. I have been super close to attaining native pronunciation but my friends always tell me there is still some American flavor to it. They tell me it is cute, but I don't want to be cute; I want to be listened to with no distractions and to be taken seriously. So, will definitely be referencing this video again whenever I start slacking on my pronunciation again.
Ironically, even though I don't speak any Japanese at all but I could pick up the differences between the Japanese and English voice when the woman was speaking Japanese much easier than when she was speaking English. Her English just sounded like English to me, even in the Japanese style, even after the explanation of the specific differences. Even if I'm aware of the differences, I'm so used to hearing so many different styles of American English that even the idea that there's a specific style of American English seems, honestly, wrong to me. But that simply goes back to how closely culture is tied to language. Separately, and on the note of culture, as a Spanish lingusit who grew up across and has lived all over the U.S., I know that the American vocal style you're referring to here is actually the "Hollywood" or "national news" voice. It's a style of speaking that was intentionally developed to be as inoffensive and natural sounding to all Americans as possible. It's generally West Coast-to-eastern-Midwest, and heavily white. Ironically, you'll find very few people who actually sound like this in the United States. This isn't how Hispanic/Latino Americans talk, it isn't how people from the Great Lakes areas talk, it's definitely not how many North Easterners talk, or how any Southerner talks. Heck, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone on the West Coast or in the Midwest who sounds exactly like this. It's a sort of watered-down amalgamation that doesn't sound like anyone in particular, except some celebrities and news anchors. That's probably why it feels so wrong to hear you call this "the" American English style of speaking, because it's such a huge culture violation for me to suggest that any one of the many styles of American English are supposedly "the" style. Regardless, fantastic video and excellent explanation of a complex topic in an easily digestible format.
It seems like the very nature and formality of news generates new, standard yet non colloquial speaking. Reminds me of Modern Standard Arabic
Exactly!
As a native English speaker and American, the “Hollywood” accent is the natural accent of the PNW and Alaskan regions. While not a majority, I wouldn’t describe these heavily populated areas as “few people”.
I thought the same She often sounded more fluent in English with the first takes
it's the same for japanese. what you are hearing here is japanese "nhk" (broadcast television) standard style, the one you need to speak to be able to appear on tv, or movies, or for voice work. how people actually speak differ from region to region. though, i feel like there's a more widespread "commonality" in japanese pronunciations than for english (the further you go out from tokyo the more it diverges).
Waiting for the punchline I'm sure it'll be great
As teaching English here in Japan, your video is always very helpful for me to understand the difference between English pronunciation and Japanese pronunciation. Amazing explanation. Thank you 🙏
I'm still a beginner learning Japanese. I try to copy how anime characters or egen Google Translate says stuff. When I try the same style of speaking with English words, I can very much feel the difference. Great analysis! This will help with my pronunciation.
I feel like some of these differences are also influenced by the ingrained habits one gets from the pitch accent vs stress accent difference. The way I see it, a pitch accent encourages that general uniformity and regularity in pronunciation, while stress accent really lets you be loosey-goosey with unstressed syllables. I don't know enough to guess as to whether this is causative or coincidental though.
This was a super useful video. Granted, Japanese is my third language, but its cool to have a proper explanation as to why each of my languages sound so different from my "standard" voice. Thank you for sharing this video to us youtube plebs. Lol.
The emphasis is also often placed in different places which makes the phrases sound different too, not emphasizing the important parts of the sentence but all the little particles way more. Also, sometime English speakers will move too quick, saying the wrong words because we do do a lot of like slurring of speech making it hard to tell the the differences for things like "biyo" or "byo" and similar.
Through the entire lesson I couldn't help but think Dogen was setting us up for a "kore wa pen desu" or something worse. 😅
Ok, you got me interested in your Patreon
I am a music teacher with vocal training and I looooove hearing people from the linguistics field explain the features of languages. Not only does it help me with my craft, but I get excited when you explain something subtle about the language that my musical ear picked up on and now I know the terms to use to describe it.
I agree, i compose as a hobby and love linguistics, so phonetics are especially fascinating. Tbh beatboxing can be very insightful to the craft of vocal coaching aswell.
I could hear it more clearly when you were saying the differences in English compared to Japanese than when the woman was doing the comparisons because her j-accent is strong. But the accent differences in Japanese I could hear better with her. So I thought that was interesting and then you talked about that at the end, so we’re on the same page. Yes, she did a great job! It’s obvious that the Japanese hits the separate hiragana syllables, I’m guessing that is the “consistency,” where in Eng we sort of blur everything together. Japanese do too in normal conversation but the separation of the syllables is still there even with their blurring. And there’s the defined ending. Great class Dogen, thanks for sharing!
great video! I think identity changes in second languages, while not the primary subject of this video, is a fascinating topic that is studied in Academics. Paul K Matsuda from ASU is one such scholar. My wife often talks about how her english speaking identity is much different from her identity when speaking her native language
I feel more polite in Spanish than in English.
Living in Tokyo for almost two years now and this makes sense. I had to re-train myself how to speak sometimes and when I try to speak another language like Russian, for example, I am using Japanese pronunciation and voice. It's crazy how the language learning process rewires your brain. Love your videos! Thanks for your explanations.
Hi! As a multiple language speaker, I totally get it. Somehow I manage to go on a higher level with the vocal differences. As in, in formal settings I speak them in a way, while in casual settings my voice sounds in a whole different way. I also came to believe that the mood of the conversation influences the way we speak in certain languages under certain situations. I never understood how it is possible but yeah it is possible. Great video! 😊
interesting, thanks dogen.
I am Japanese, and aware that my voice goes deeper when I speak English. This vid shows it very clearly. Thanks for sharing!
Incredible resource Dogen. This is super helpful for any language learner. It's really interesting that I can't really tell the difference between the Japanese examples (Japanese in Japanese style vs Japanese in English style) except the english style just sounds somehow bad. However I can tell more clearly why the english in Japanese style looks off.
Great video! I think I've had several interactions with this personally when learning both japanese and english. My mother tounge is Swedish and in high school I noticed that I mumbled very easily when speaking with an american accent. Since we were asked to pick an accent to learn (since there are differences in words between british and american english in addition to the varying pronounciations and dialects) I decided to speak british english as to get a higher grade due to better pronouciation (even if my vocabulary is more american). Here I got to experience three kinds of voices, but most evident was that the "swedish voice" and "american voice" was very different. As compared to my voice which is quite low and deep I often speak Swedish with a higher tone and sort of "in my mouth", as I'd like to describe it now. American English was deep, "in the throat", relax and sloppy - though I do think I did the mistake of having a narrow mouth due to being overly relaxed and thus sloppy - and this made me sound as if I was mumbling. Then with British English the tone was again a tad higher, more posh sounding as if you are at a tea party with the queen (which I'd say is done by speaking more articulate at parts of the words and not pronouncing other parts, as in "bottle of water"), spoken with a more "open" throat and mouth but still "in the throat". Learning Japanese I noticed a when a notch higher in tone than with Swedish and that it was hard or even impossible to speak with a low and relaxed voice. I'd say I talk Japanese "at the soft palate". But I'm still a beginner, somewhere at N4 level, even though I've studied many years due to not studying a lot. Also, I've just got to say, I love it when you find a video that goes in depth on something you yourself has noticed and thought about but never heard anyone else talk about. Thank you!
As an American who grew up in Japan who now works in Indonesia, this was absolutely spot on. It absolutely helps to “personify” a person from the culture in whose language you are speaking to come across as more natural and fluent. Haven’t seen it explained so well until now!
Great video, although I can't really do much with that information as a German native speaker :D While I do learn Japanese completely through English, naturally those specific phonetic problems don't apply to me (surely many others instead :D). Even if they did, my English speaking voice is probably something in between AE and BE. Plus people vastly differ in their ability to enunciate words even in their native language depending on how much they are influenced by their surroundings, like picking up the local dialect since childhood and never really having needed to speak in a formal and neutral way. Just like some will never, even with proper training, learn to sing (especially more extreme styles). What I am trying to say is, that while I personally try my best to sound as natural in the target language I'm learning (like most watching these videos here), I can also understand that others might either not care or simply don't have the ability to even hear the nuances in tone that are required to truly come close to sounding native in another language. And to that latter group I'd say: Don't get discouraged! :] (Basically what Dogen says at 16:33; there are many other factors to what makes you easier to understand for natives of your target language) To quote Shuzo Matsuoka: 「ネーヴァ ギヴ アップ ！！」
This is so interesting! It seems like that is a kind of hidden reason why one might have an accent while speaking a foreign language. Even if the sounds themselves and prosodics are correct, the style can make you sound foreign. And I like that I feel myself pretty confident in speaking in both speaking styles, not being a native of either :)
The fun thing is that even when the native Japanese speaker used the American style, she still sounded slightly Asian. (as in not specifically japanese to me, but from somewhere in that part of the world) Despite being fluent. Personally I don't mind, at that level you are well beyond the main goal of language, which is to communicate effectively. Basically aside from the words and the basic sounds, you want to capture the melody of a language. At least well enough that you don't offend most people on a daily basis.
In turkish there even is a saying which says "one language, one person"... i'd even say that you switch your personality, not only your voice :)
ドゲン先生、いつもありがとうございました。
This video alone helped me almost completely grasp the concept of that quick cutoff to vowels at the end of Japanese words that doesn’t exist in American English. It’s to keep the timing consistent with all the characters, if I’m understanding correctly. Plus I LOVE the culture caveat at the end, that is so incredibly helpful too, and I now realize I love learning other languages because I truly love people and what makes them tick, and respect and admire other cultures.
Switching between languages and voices for that matter is sort of like switching between characters. Btw., it's also between talking to different people. What I noticed, that some aspects of speaking or the voice are enhanced or suppressed in other languages. Lisps can be noticably stronger or significantly less.
It feels like you might be referring to "Code-switching". It's typically a term used to describe how people (primarily minorities) will change their vocal presentation in different environments in order to make themselves fit into a different culture more seamlessly; however, code-switching also something that shows up in language presentation. Talking Japanese (Or any other language) with English mannerisms is usually kind of... Odd - or even outright uncomfortable - so we switch to have a presentation and mannerisms more typical of the culture/environment that matches the language. That includes changing the way we pronounce words and how our voices sound in general.
I definitely heard the difference at 6:20, it may help that i also speak (mex) Spanish and increases the types of vowel sounds i hear. when i heard the english style i felt the same thing as when a non-native speaker speaks Spanish. I think this is mostly an acent thing. But also, the styles of spanish im aware of help, in Mexican spanish its slower and more relaxed vs other countries that are like a drill or a drum roll.
aa thank you for this video/explanation! I've noticed that when I speak Japanese, my voice gets higher and a lil more... cutesy, almost? & I've always felt self-conscious about it, especially when I'm talking around English speakers. like, I'm scared that people will think I'm trying to sound super childish and kawaii~, or like, trying to romanticize the language... if that makes sense?? but I'm glad to hear that this is an actual phenomenon when speaking a diff language!
A person's voice changing from language to language a normal phenomenon. It happens even if you change accent in your native language. Language pitch change happens for a variety of reasons: tonal native language differences, etiquette differences, etc. English has a lot of elision, making words and sentences much more casual, as Dogen mentions. The trick to being jouzu is to mimic the intonation and pauses of the dialect you're learning. It's not easy sometimes. Great video!
Phonetics is one thing, but I love exploring the phenomenon of multilinguals actually developing multiple personalities that go hand in hand with their languages. After reading about how language influences us and how we perceive the world and looking closely at myself I concluded I prefer myself in English - even though it's actually my L2. As Poland and the US are different in general (most of the time I learned US English and also spent way more time there than the UK) my English-speaking and Polish-speaking personas are different, and I like the more self-assured, less stringent one in most cases. Adding on the strict upbringing versus my first jobs and travels on my own and now I am totally switching to English when I feel uncertain, cornered, lacking confidence... I would then translate to Polish if I'm in a conversation, but my brain (and amy exasperated adlibs) are in "English mode". Knowing and hearing the difference, and being able to make yourself seem more local/more approachable/more polite/more enforcing/anything on purpose is a wonderful skill ❤ ...yeah, just ignore me, just flying on an ADHD high 😂 I'll leave a like and go now 😂
I struggle with this a lot, given that my English voice is unusually monotone and slow. It's really taking me a lot of practice to correct this in Japanese.
I think you might be reading a bit too much into this. The phenomenon you were talking about is very real, and every language has its different “formants,” the part of the voice that the sounds come from. it’s the first thing we learn as we start speaking as children. Babies start picking this up and imitating it before they know anything about culture; they do it before they even know any words. They imitate the most basic sounds and cadences of their target language. I’m a musician, so in addition to grammar and pronunciation, I pay close attention to vocal style, vocal production, when I learn a new language. I lived in Greece for many years and speak that language. It has a very tense vocal production, and very forward in the mouth. I remember particularly when I went to Turkey for the first time, I was struck by what a different part of their voice people spoke from. much more relaxed and very open throat. And a little kids learning to speak there pick that up way before they ever say any complete words or sentences. American English speech also has its very distinct “rules” for its vocal placement, how we accent words and how we stress things. Our vocal production is a little more relaxed and open, but there is absolutely nothing “disorderly“ about it. It’s just a different order with its own rules. It doesn’t mean that our rules are not just as strict, and when someone doesn’t adhere to that production, we immediately recognize the difference. For example, the speaker in the demonstrations may be changing her delivery a little, but her light and somewhat breathy vocal production is still very very typical “female Japanese.” This goes way beyond her accent. She is closer to American vocal production but she still sounds like she is a Japanese person imitating it, so we can hear it immediately.
These types of videos are so much better over the other joke ones
Damn you, Dogen, damn you. I never realized I trailed off, but now I noticed it and now it's tormenting me.
Very good!
Having recently gotten into artificial intelligence voice cloning and voice model training I have trained models of several Japanese actors and even some English speaking actors and I am finding that when I speak through those models my own vocal inflections come through and it sounds quite different. It takes a lot of practice and observation to match or come close to the vocal inflections of the original actors to get the voices to sound like them.
its so funny yet frustrating because even though i know how a proper japanese way of speaking sounds in my head, and i can hear it in my head very clearly, it never sounds like that coming out of my actual mouth. i stilll tend to speak japanese with an “english” inflection without that consistent orderliness and i wonder what i can do to practice this in particular. maybe just simple immitation lessons?
I think it's also influenced by culture (all the people you interacted with from the country in the language over the years based on how they treated you and your interpretation of your own voice/atmosphere you give off) and self-identity in that language, I'm bilingual in English and Japanese and get more shy and have less confidence about myself or have some negativity when I think in Japanese and have more optimism when I'm in English-mode. Some of this has to do with living conditions and environment too (I lived in a darker place in Tokyo and experienced bullying and felt alienated at times, more so than in America, but everyone's experience is different)
I'm the same. I am very shy, awkward and heavy in German (language spoken in school where I had few friends and was bullied at times), quite confident in English (where I live now for university), in Japanese extremely excited and lively (because I had many friends when I was there on exchange and felt like I could be myself with them) but also extremely apologetic (because my host family would always get upset at me)
I practiced martial arts, Filipino and Japanese. I remember the dojo days and couldn't avoid to remember that classic "ONEGAISHIMAS" cry in Samurai voice 😅 Thanks for sharing
This is very interesting, but different from what I thought the video would be about. In my case my Japanese university class focused almost exclusively on listening and speaking and we were graded daily in class based on how natural/native we sounded. So of course I consciously would practice speaking phrases and trying to sound as close to the listening practices we had. The male voice in our listening practice was relatively deep voiced so as a result of me trying to mimick that my "Japanese voice" is much lower register and I guess...more manly? lol than my regular English voice that I developed unconsciously as a child. So the difference between my Japanese voice and English voice is way less subtle than the phonetics talked about here.
I noticed that the English phrases also have a significant down turn at the end, usually to indicate the end of the thought. Much more pronounced than in the singsong 'steady' Japanese.
This is fascinating: I have done voice recording for Japanese textbooks (designed for English speakers) and I had to speak in both English and Japanese. I had to change my voice for 3 different characters. I used my "English" voice for more authoritarian character and "Japanese" voice for younger characters.
Something that is also good for a lot of Japanese language veterans out there. Well done👍
Not much of a japanese learner but a mandarin one, and also going through transition,,, I've noticed that my vocal training in english doesn't transfer over very well and that I have to basically do it another time for each language this sorta reminded me of that cuz one gf the first thing I noticed was the pitch difference between the styles
I saw a video showcase for Channel 1, an upcoming AI news presentation platform that can change the spoken language of any speaker on the fly and in their own voice (Star Trek-style). I'd love to see a comparison between what that comes up with and your actual bilingual voice!
As soon as he pointed out the vocal fry at the end of phrases, I immediately started noticing him doing it himself in pretty much every sentence.
I'm currently on Duolingo learning Japanese (slowly). There are 6 different voices reciting the audio lessons. I have always had a tendency to imitate other people. I definitely noticed that my recitation has subtle differences based on which character I'm repeating after. Not sure exactly how that ties in with this, but it felt like a similar phenomenon.
I studied this a little in college linguistics classes and a large part of the difference has to do with the degree that certain parts of the throat, mouth and tongue that are used, where focused sounds bounce in the mouth, plus airflow differences. Japanese uses a lot more sound focused and placed deeper in the throat near the vocal chords, with less lip and mouth movement, and English sounds are focused more prominently in the nasal cavity and middle and front of the mouth which affects pitch. When most American speakers speak Japanese their voice deepens a bit. My Japanese friends used to comment that when I spoke English my voice got higher lol.
I've absolutely noticed that I speak most similarly to native Japanese and most comfortably when speaking at a higher register! Very interesting ありがとう！
どっちが好きですか？ is such a rhythmic phrase! If you remove the vowels it sounds like beatboxing
Bilingual myself (native FR) i've always noticed this and it "makes sense" to me, but having it explained in a more tangible way is fascinating. Part of it i think is that difference languages have a different "flow" to them. The intonation, emphasis, inflextions, etc... for a given sentence tends to have a particular "standard" in each language aswell. And also that some of patterns of the speech (pronounciations, spaces, etc...) lends itself to having a higher or lower pitched voice or even personality depending on the language. There's just a feel to each sentence in different languages that i can't quite describe but i know is there, and trying to explain it is certainly frustrating haha. Neither the video nor what i typed here fully captures it. But i definitely agree that the things you point out are part of it, the difference in vocal "techniques", the cadence/rhythm of the sentence, etc...
I don't think I could divorce "speaking style" from the language like this. Transferring it to another language is quite interesting. I do think the biggest thing here is that the English language seems deathly afraid of vowel hiatus, though :D And so native English speakers will do everything they can do avoid it (subconsciously, of course) I was speaking English fluently for years before I noticed these kinds of difference (my native language being German). Also took a long time before I got some of the sounds properly nailed down - you just don't notice you are doing it wrong. (The æ sound, in particular, like in "bat" or "cat" was quite tricky for me. Most Germans pronounce it with our "e" sound, making them sound like "bet" and "ket". I knew this was wrong, but I was using the German "a" sound instead, not the æ sound it should be. One example of many)
I know a girl from South Africa who prounces it similarly to how you described, with closer to e sounds than usually used in English. She even pronounces some words very differently from anybody else I know, like"however" becomes "hi-ever".
I find my speaking shifts because I need to approach certain words in a different way than I normally would... and that approach spreads to everything around it. お先に失礼します (which I was attempting to sing along with the Hanabie song) is a phrase I can only say if I emulate a Japanese speaker. My English tongue can't do it.