Pronunciation or grammar question

[Bramicus]

I'm not sure whether this is a problem of grammar, or of pronunciation.

On the first lesson of Pimsleur comprehensive Japanese II, at about 28:20 on the CD, the woman speaker is supposed to say, "As for me, I don't have much work."

After the "as for me, not much" [watashi-wa, amari] part, I expect to hear "shigoto-ga arimasen." But instead what I hear is something like "shimoto-ma arimasen" -- with both "G" sounds replaced by "M". I listened to this a few times, and I'm pretty sure she's saying M instead of G. Can anyone tell me why this is?

[Damicci]

You should make a wav file of it available so we can listen for ourselves. If that is possible. Ther ehas been plenty a times where I swore someone was saying something totally different than what is actually being said. It is the mistake of not having an ear for japanese yet. I still hear the wrong pronounciations still.

[Elizabeth]

It could be because Pimsleur doesn't always use native speakers....I've never gone through them so I don't know the kind of sound you're talking about. If you've heard 'ga' before and know how it's supposed to be, there isn't a grammatical problem. As Damicci said, the files need to be available to say for sure.

[Bramicus]

I can't make a WAV file, if not for copyright reasons then for lack of technical knowledge alone.

However, I can tell you that they are certainly native Japanese speakers, and when the man says "I have work tomorrow morning" I certainly hear the Gs in "shigoto-ga arimas" and when the woman says "shigoto" and "-ga arimas" in other contexts I certainly hear the Gs then as well.

I guess what I am asking is, are there either (1) grammatical circumstances when "shimoto-mo arimasen" would be correct, or (2) times when the "G" is pronounced like "M" in "shigoto-ga arimasen"? If neither, then there must be some problem either with the recording, or with my ears. :-(

[Glenn]

I'm guessing your hearing the nasalization of the "g" -- "nga." Without hearing it it's hard to really determine. There was quite a discussion about that phenomenon in this thread (http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/message/message.cgi?thread=jpnDqccTdsPDqaHu83-.html). Do you think that's what you're hearing?

[pipokun]

I'm guessing your hearing the nasalization of the "g" -- "nga." Without hearing it it's hard to really determine. There was quite a discussion about that phenomenon in this thread (http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/message/message.cgi?thread=jpnDqccTdsPDqaHu83-.html). Do you think that's what you're hearing?

you are probably right.
"ga, gi, gu, ge, go" sounds tend to pronounce "nga, ngi, ngu, nge, ngo".
the former sounds are supposed to be a bit harsh, so esp., in music lessons in Japan, we are taught to sing songs with not "ga", but more "nga".


FORZA MILAN!

[Elizabeth]

you are probably right.
"ga, gi, gu, ge, go" sounds tend to pronounce "nga, ngi, ngu, nge, ngo".
the former sounds are supposed to be a bit harsh, so esp., in music lessons in Japan, we are taught to sing songs with not "ga", but more "nga".

But that sound is universal isn't it....I can't see why the poster would be hearing it some places and not others. At least it isn't context dependent for me -- without having looked at the link. :sorry:

[Bramicus]

Is there an easy way to make a WAV file from the CD? Of just that little snippet I mean? That would be fair use, I believe.

[pipokun]

when you write "shimo(or ngo)to-mo arimasen", it is 100% wrong.

but when it comes to the pronouciation, either is OK.
"shigoto-mo arimasen"
"shingoto-mo arimasen"

I asume that the nasalized go sound, ngo, might be heard as "mo" for some English speakers.

[pipokun]

It seems to me that the nasalized sounds in Japanese are more serious Japanese gramatical issues than expected. It is like "we should preserve the traditional Japanese or not". I was so surprised to find there're areas where people don't use the sounds. I am originally from Kanagawa, and am supposed to speak the standard Japanese. I actually don't have any difficulties to pronouce the sounds.

An anchorman in TV Tokyo explains more about the sound in the following site, and you can find a mp3 file there. Do you tell the differences?
The sentence is "ゴゴ（午後）のカイギ（会議）でキギョウ（企業）ガ"
http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/announcer/syunjyu/02.htm

[Bucko]

I just listened to it and I can understand your confusion. However, I think if you listen really carefully you can just hear a soft "ga". Actually it sounds more like a "nga".

I've also head that the woman on this series is not a native speaker of Japanese. Here is an Amazon review regarding that:

----------------
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067131548X/qid=1117579019/sr=1-19/ref=sr_1_19/103-4262844-1115046?v=glance&s=books

First off, I do not want to appear as a "Pimsleur Basher." I think their courses are the best, compared with all the others out there. The content structure of this course is excellent, as are all the Pimsleur courses. If you're buying this to learn the Japanese language, I would recommend this for the sentence patterns and linguistic information alone.
That aside, you should know up front that the speakers in the Japanese 2 series, from which you will be modeling your speaking, are **not native speakers**. Ok, that may be a little harsh; the male speaker may **possibly** be a native speaker, but his accent is definitely non-standard -- and by standard, I mean the accepted Kanto dialect, which you will hear on NHK news broadcasts and just about any Japanese language audio program. My main criticism is with the female speaker (who according to the credits in the program book is one of the course's writers); her accent screams out at you as being not only non-standard, but non-native! I'm surprised at 1) Pimsleur's (i.e. Simon and Schuster) carelessness in not reviewing the quality of its speakers -- if the consumer is shelling out big bucks for this course, the very least Pimsleur should do is ensure that it uses standard accents to model; 2) the gall of the female speaker to pass herself off as a model speaker on a mass-distributed language program, especially one as popular as the Pimsleur program -- who the heck does she think she's fooling?! (Well, obviously she must have fooled the folks at Pimsleur!)

Here's an analogy: as fluent in the English language as Henry Kissinger is, would you recommend him as a model speaker on an English language learning audio program? Or put another way, as a learner of English, would you want to model your accent after Dr. Kissinger? How about learning English by modeling Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent? How would you like to shell out over $300 for the privilege, not knowing what you were getting? Many people unsuspectingly have...

Notes:
1)Just to show I'm not alone in these views, I played the CDs to 5 native speakers of Japanese; every listener singled out the female speaker on the CDs as glaringly non-native in her accent/intonation; very fluent perhaps, but definitely not a native speaker. The fact that the credits list her as having a Japanese maiden name only adds to the mystery.
2)The version I reviewed was copyrighted in 1996 and 1998. I have not yet reviewed courses 1 nor 3, but if they contain the same speakers -- BUYER BEWARE!

[Glenn]

I discovered something interesting about Japanese nasals the other day when I looked up 本 in the dictionary. At the bottom it says 〔「さんぼん」「いっぽん」などのように、撥音に続く ときは濁音に、促音に続くときは半濁音になる〕, which lead me to look up the word 撥音. There, I found this (http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/search.php?MT=%D9%FB%B2%BB&kind=jn&mode=1&jn.x=25&jn.y=10). So it seems that Japanese actually has four nasals, the bilabial nasal, the alveolar nasal, the retroflex nasal, and the palatal nasal (all voiced). Here is more about nasal consonants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_consonant).

I didn't think that Japanese had so many nasals, due to my thinking that ん is just "n," but after thinking about it, I realized that I actually did know that they all existed. I found the examples of each to be interesting, as well. ご参考まで。 :-):cool::wave:

[Bramicus]

Wow - thanks for the info, Bucko. I am also greatly surprised that S&S would use non-native -- let alone nonstandard! -- speakers for such a top-line product. :-(