On 02/05/2022 09:37, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> Phoneticians divide the speech sounds we make into about 200-odd
> distinguishable phonemes. Specific languages use a subset of these,
> often lumping similar sounds together. English has about 44 phonemes
>
> https://magoosh.com/english-speaking/44-phonemes-in-english-and-other-sound-blends/
>
> though it varies a bit between dialects. All English speakers hear
> "r" and "l" as distinct phonemes. Japanese speakers have to make an
> effort to make the distinction.

Their "l/r" sound "r" is somewhere in between English l and r and cannot
occur without a trailing vowel (usually a short u in most cases). Only
the Japanese letter n can occur on its own without a trailing vowel.

This means that the correct answer in Japanese "English" to the question
what do you call an Apple(Ringo in Japanese) in English is: Apuru

The corresponding gotcha for the Western ear in Japanese is that the
length of a vowel sound really matters and we normally ignore that. Many
UK dialects would be incomprehensible if you didn't ignore vowel length.

eg.
Sco-ne vs Scon for example depending on where you are in the country.

My own name Martin relies on long vowels in Japanese Ma-chin.
(no R available and no Ti phoneme) Luckily it ends with an "n".

If you are listening for vowel length then that is what you hear!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown