#Japanese #LanguageLearning #pronunciation #voice #learningJapanese
So I started taking speaking lessons for Japanese. A teacher is helping me with my voice, pronunciation and intonation.
It turns out that I've been speaking with "an english like voice" the whole time. I use my voice box too much, and I should have been using my breath more.
Normal speech in Japanese is something between speaking (all voice) and a whisper (all breath).
On top of that, my tongue was in the wrong position the whole time. It should have been further to the back, almost touching the back of my throat.
When I put it in the right place and speak, the teacher says I sound a lot better but it feels super unnatural to do. I'm just not used to speaking from that position.
I think I need to just get used to it, almost closing the throat with the tongue means the air vibrates more in the mouth and that compensates for the voice box doing less work.
Next goals are:
- Getting used to speaking from the right position
- Learning to hear the difference in my speech
- Learning to hear it in other speech (there's like a vibratey buzzy quality in english that is largely absent in Japanese)