Subject: [76attendees] How to pronounce "Hiroshima"

From: "Dale Worley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:51:00 -0500

I was once in Japan long ago, and one of the few things I remember about
Japanese is that the pronunciation of "Hiroshima" is much different than
it is in English.  In (Standard American) English, it is pronounced "hi
roe SHEE ma", but in Japanese (IIRC) it is closer to "hi ROE shi ma".
Also, that "R" is a "flap r", much like the single "r" in Spanish.  It
sounds a lot like "t" to this American ear.  (It is actually the same as
the "t" in "butter" in Standard American English pronunciation.)

Dale

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From: "Gregory M. Lebovitz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:15:19 -0800

>roe SHEE ma", but in Japanese (IIRC) it is closer to "hi ROE shi ma".

Is it [hi ROE shi ma] or [hee ROW shee ma]?

>the "t" in "butter" in Standard American English pronunciation.)

Very helpful. Much appreciated,
Gregory.

>Dale
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>76attendees mailing list
>[email-masked]
>https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/76attendees

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From: "Dale Worley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:42:26 -0500

> Is it [hi ROE shi ma] or [hee ROW shee ma]?

Good point:  Now that you mention it, the vowel's (i/ee) nature is
somewhat between the English "short i" and "long e".  What I noticed
more is that they are both of rather short duration, whereas I think
that any "long e" in English is prolonged a bit.  The stress on the
second syllable is quite pronounced.  The vowel of the second syllable
is a "long o" but with no "w" at the end, somewhat like Standard
American English "roe" (fish eggs) or "row" (to propel a boat forward).

And while we're at it, in "Osaka", the first syllable is stressed, and
its vowel is a long o that is definitely prolonged, it's one of the
Japanese "long vowels", so it is sort of OOO-sa-ka.

Dale

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From: JINMEI Tatuya / 神明達哉 <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:47:31 -0800

At Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:15:19 -0800,

> Is it [hi ROE shi ma] or [hee ROW shee ma]?

I guess the former is closer to the authentic pronunciation, but I
believe both should work.

IMO, the most important point is to pronounce each syllable clearly
(liaisons would confuse the listener very much).  How to pronounce
each syllable is relatively minor, especially when you say the word in
an appropriate context (e.g. when specifying your destination at a
train station).

---
JINMEI, Tatuya
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.

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From: Dae Young KIM <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 03:57:20 +0900

I'm not a Japanese, but I'd suggest you pronounce it just like:

    hee-RO-shee-ma     (ee = short 'i') (O = short 'o')
                                     (a bit of accent at RO)
                                     ('ma' as in 'mother')

For, I don't think RO is with a long vowel in this case. And also, they
don't pronounce it like 'roe' or 'row' in Japan, I think. Just a simple
sound 'o'.

If you're a Spanish or an Italian, you'd be more comfortable to pronounce
this 'simple' vowels.

-- 
Regards,

DY
http://cnu.kr/~dykim

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From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 11:34:37 -0800 (PST)

Rather than argue about how one might represent sounds in ASCII in a 
manner that we can all agree on (difficult unless you use standard
special characters for such), may I humbly suggest that we use the
Internets which now actually support "multi-media" and "searching"
and you might find something like:

http://www.forvo.com/word/hiroshima/

http://www.ehow.com/how_2183342_pronounce-japanese-words.html

The "best" way to learn how things are pronounced is probably to just 
listen to spoken Japanese, bring a little radio and listen to one of 
the NHK stations that feature just "spoken" Japanese, be it lectures, 
news etc. (You don't have to understand a single word to get a feel 
for the way the language SOUNDS). There are probably Internet audio 
streams for most of this too, local folks can chime in.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

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From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 11:43:31 -0800 (PST)

You could of course take the just-in-time learning approach:

http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/story/scene01/index.html

Ole J. Jacobsen

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From: Dae Young KIM <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 04:59:18 +0900

In fact, any foul pronunciation of Japanese word would put you in too odd a
situation. Mostly, they already know what you're saying.

And perhaps in contrast to western culture(??? am I right?), it would even
seem strange for a foreigner to speak too fluent Japanese or Korean. Odd
pronunciation is cute and more appealing(?), and they already know you must
be in trouble and would be more ready to offer help.

BTW, about ASCII.. did you know that the Korean characters, Hanguel, is one
of the simplest and most effective phonetic script? A topic for a possibly
future IETF in Corea. Now, it's about Japan and Hiroshima.

-- 
Regards,

DY
http://cnu.kr/~dykim

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From: Dae Young KIM <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 05:00:19 +0900

>> In fact, any foul pronunciation of Japanese word would put you in too
odd a situation.

I'm sorry, I meant to say 'would NOT'.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 4:59 AM, Dae Young KIM <[email-masked]> wrote:

> http://cnu.kr/~dykim <http://cnu.kr/%7Edykim>
>

-- 
Regards,

DY
http://cnu.kr/~dykim

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:01:07 -0600

the purpose of the tourist is to amuse the locals

randy

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:22:22 +0900

Dale Worley allegedly wrote on 11/06/2009 3:42 AM:
> that any "long e" in English is prolonged a bit.  

Since we're geeking out about this, as non-Japanese who likes languages
... "hiro" and "shima" are etymologically two separate words.  If
"shima" appeared on its own the "shi" would be stressed.  However, there
is a tendency in Japanese to almost elide the "i" when "shi" appears
after the beginning of a word, and through use that tendency has come to
dominate the original meaning.

Dae Young KIM allegedly wrote on 11/06/2009 4:59 AM:
> BTW, about ASCII.. did you know that the Korean characters, Hanguel, is
> one of the simplest and most effective phonetic script? A topic for a
> possibly future IETF in Corea. Now, it's about Japan and Hiroshima.

Agreed.  As a non-native (again) I find Korean writing to be admirably
efficient.

swb

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From: Dae Young KIM <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 22:54:51 +0900

> dominate the original meaning.

Another way of looking at the issue is that... I think accent really doesn't
matter much in the Japanese language... in contrast to English, if I'm
right. You put an accent at a wrong vowel in an English word, you won't be
understood. But not quite the same with Japanese.  Wrong accent might be
more of dialect. There's no strict sense of accent as I know.

-- 
Regards,

DY
http://cnu.kr/~dykim