Includes a Checklist & Practice Recording Tools
Welcome Speakers of Japanese : ) So you’d like to improve your English accent and pronunciation?
I’ve put together these English Pronunciation Exercises for Japanese Speakers who are looking for English pronunciation training or accent reduction and how to speak English more clearly.
On this page you’ll find out the 8 most important areas of English pronunciation for Japanese speakers to improve for clear English. Record your own speech and find out if you have similar pronunciation problems. Listen to Japanese speakers and find out how you can start working to correct some of these sounds.
What are the typical English Pronunciation problems for Japanese Speakers? ManyJapanese speakers have difficulty pronouncing the English consonant sounds /l/,/r/, /f/,/v/ & ‘th’. Japanese has only 5 vowel sounds. English has 20. English long & double vowels are often challenging. Word stress is often flatter and more even than an English native speaker.
Top 8 English Pronunciation Problems For Japanese Speakers
I’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of Japanese speaking professionals to help them speak clearer English.
For most of them, the 8 areas below were their main problems, so I’ve included English Pronunciation Exercises for Japanese Speakers on these key areas. Some of these areas were easy for them to correct and some were very challenging and took a lot of dedicated, systematic training and practice. These are my top 8 English Pronunciation tips for Japanese Speakers.
Use the questions in the checklist below to check these areas in your English pronunciation.
You might not be sure if you’re making these errors or not! That’s OK. It takes time to become aware of your pronunciation and to get control of your mouth and muscles!
The recording tools below will help you with becoming more aware of your problem areas.
Record your own speech to check for errors further down the page!
The Top 8 Problem Areas For Japanese Speakers And Checklist:
1. Consonants /l/ & /r/
Check: Are you confusing /l/ & /r/?
2. Consonants /f/ & /v/
Check: Do you sometimes use /p/ instead of /f/ for example ‘preper’ instead of ‘prefer’? Do you sometimes use /b/instead of /v/? For example you might say ‘bideo’ instead of ‘video’.
3. Consonant ‘th’
Do you sometimes use /s/ or /z/ instead of ‘th’? For example you might say ‘sink’ instead of ‘think’.
4. Vowel /oʊ/ like in ‘note’
Do you pronounce ‘note’ more like ‘not’ or ‘nought’
5. Vowel‘er’ /ɜː/ like in ‘hurt’
Do you pronounce ‘hurt’ more like ‘heart’ and ‘firm’ more like ‘farm’?
6. Vowel/æ/ like in ‘hat’
Do you pronounce ‘hat’ more like ‘hut’ and ‘back’ more like ‘buck’?
7. Word stress
Do you feel like the pitch and rhythm of your English is flatter than a native speakers? Each multi-syllable word in English has 1 stressed syllable. Using word stress makes words easy for your listeners to recognise and makes the ‘rhythm’ English.
8. Weak vowels
Japanese speakers tend to make every vowel in English full. For example, in the word ‘today’ they pronounce the ‘o’ sound. English speakers make the letter ‘o’ in ‘today’ weak, more like ‘uh’, so it’s/təˈdeɪ/. Listen here.
Scroll down to LISTEN & RECORD!
Record Your Speech & Listen To Japanese Speakers
Let’s start by looking more closely at the consonants /l/, /v/ and then the double / diphthong vowel /oʊ/.
- Read about the problem and how to fix it in the grey box.
- In the blue box, click to listen to the Japanese speaker. Can you hear the problem sound?
- Then, listen to the native English speaker. Can you hear the difference between the Japanese speaker and the native speaker’s pronunciation.
- Try it yourself! Record your speech using the voice recorder. Play to listen. Are you making the sound incorrectly or correctly?
This will help you become more aware of what your problem areas are.
Correcting pronunciation and improving your English accent can be challenging. It can be made easier with specialised training.For easy to follow, step by step training to correct all these problem areas specifically for Japanese speakers, check out ouraward winning English Pronunciation Course for Japanese Speakers. These top tips on English Pronunciation tips for Japanese Speakers will help get you started!
