Ive been learning Japanese for roughly 8 months now. I never thought of the pronounciation in English so after a bit fo learning Japanese, I assumed it wasn’t silent. Either way, now I know and im still sticking to **T**sunami
It’s easy to hear the sound you’re expecting, especially when the actual sound is quite close. I had this experience as a watcher of Chinese dramas, where I heard the ‘z’ as a z, but it’s actually something like a ts. I was simply autocorrecting in my head.
That is very much depedent on where you live I’d say. I hear a lot of americans who know it’s not a typical S on the front and will try to make the Tsu sound.
I would say more that this is a case of English adopting an already used sound into another location of speech.
Because if you say in English “Guts” and add “oo” to the end “gutsu” you roughly mimic the Tsu. This TS sound is what a lot of people try to say infront of Tsunami, but they overstress the Su and almost devoice the T. Which is what a lot of American English speakers do when making a plural noun.
We have the Ts sound all over in English when making plurals. So a lot of people when they read tsunami, the try to put that T sound on it.
But there are definitely a large range of English speakers who instead say it more like すうなみ instead of つなみ。
yes we do.
Yeah, it becomes a silent letter because English has no native words that start with a “ts” sound.
I am an American speaking English as a first language. I’ve pronounced it with a ‘ts’ for as long as I remember. I first took Japanese 31 years ago.
Can’t speak for the rest of the world but in Australia they definitely do pronounce the ts-, although some people use a soft ts
When I lived in Hawaii one of my high school teachers was Mr. Tsumoto. After learning to say his name properly, saying つなみ properly was easy. I have a feeling a lot of other people living in Hawaii pronounce the T in tsunami.
I would say that I KNOW it’s pronounced “tsu”nami but I wouldn’t usually say it like that because people would just react oddly. It’s sort of like saying Mexico versus Meh-he-co or saying Germany versus Deutschland. In a particular context I’ll say it closer to its native language pronunciation but not in a typical situation.
In America most people will either say sunami or hear sunami. When you aren’t conscious of the tsu sound, even if pronounced tsunami one may not hear the ts sound or ignore it
When I’m speaking English I usually just say sunami and pronounce it properly when speaking Japanese
Easy to explain. Starts with the last two letters of FARTS now repeat after me FARTSUNAMI now take out the FAR and behold you are nihongo jouzu’d
Its not really anything anybody would bat an eye if you pronounced the t in tsunami. Very minor
I think it’s definitely true that English speakers don’t naturally make that sound at the start of a word. Before I started learning Japanese ie reading kana, I’d assume the sound division in words like しつ was *shit soo*.
Now I know better, I say it differently.
Many English dialects have a softer t sound. I can speak RP and we laughed at the US woder for water. My local dialects use a glottal stop instead of many t sounds, depending on where they are ie wo’er for water.
Didn’t think you were supposed to? ARE YOU? TWO SNAMI??? TUHOSNAMI?
つ was a hard sound for me to learn to make. We don’t really have that sound in English the way Japanese does, and す sounds a lot more natural to us.
In English phonology, the ‘ts’ sound can only appear at the end of a syllable (or we can have ‘t’ at the end of one syllable and ‘s’ at the start of the next). So when (most) English speakers say the word, the word gets anglicized and the syllable initial ‘t’ is removed. You could also just say that the ts sound is substituted for s, but ‘ts’ is generally considered to be a consonant cluster and not a single sound.
English isn’t my native language and I pronounce it with the T
I definitely don’t say the T. I work for a Japanese company so I should ask the native speakers at work on Monday. I don’t say the T in my username either 😀
I brought this up after watching Jeopardy. The clue was words with silent letters and one of the answers was Tsunami.
What on earth? Yes we do?
I’m an English speaker and have always pronounced the T in Tsunami. When I started learning Japanese, the Tsu was easy for me because I already say it in tsunami. I’m very surprised to hear that other English speakers supposedly leave it out. Maybe it’s a regional thing?
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Ive been learning Japanese for roughly 8 months now. I never thought of the pronounciation in English so after a bit fo learning Japanese, I assumed it wasn’t silent. Either way, now I know and im still sticking to **T**sunami
It’s easy to hear the sound you’re expecting, especially when the actual sound is quite close. I had this experience as a watcher of Chinese dramas, where I heard the ‘z’ as a z, but it’s actually something like a ts. I was simply autocorrecting in my head.
That is very much depedent on where you live I’d say. I hear a lot of americans who know it’s not a typical S on the front and will try to make the Tsu sound.
I would say more that this is a case of English adopting an already used sound into another location of speech.
Because if you say in English “Guts” and add “oo” to the end “gutsu” you roughly mimic the Tsu. This TS sound is what a lot of people try to say infront of Tsunami, but they overstress the Su and almost devoice the T. Which is what a lot of American English speakers do when making a plural noun.
We have the Ts sound all over in English when making plurals. So a lot of people when they read tsunami, the try to put that T sound on it.
But there are definitely a large range of English speakers who instead say it more like すうなみ instead of つなみ。
yes we do.
Yeah, it becomes a silent letter because English has no native words that start with a “ts” sound.
I am an American speaking English as a first language. I’ve pronounced it with a ‘ts’ for as long as I remember. I first took Japanese 31 years ago.
Can’t speak for the rest of the world but in Australia they definitely do pronounce the ts-, although some people use a soft ts
When I lived in Hawaii one of my high school teachers was Mr. Tsumoto. After learning to say his name properly, saying つなみ properly was easy. I have a feeling a lot of other people living in Hawaii pronounce the T in tsunami.
I would say that I KNOW it’s pronounced “tsu”nami but I wouldn’t usually say it like that because people would just react oddly. It’s sort of like saying Mexico versus Meh-he-co or saying Germany versus Deutschland. In a particular context I’ll say it closer to its native language pronunciation but not in a typical situation.
In America most people will either say sunami or hear sunami. When you aren’t conscious of the tsu sound, even if pronounced tsunami one may not hear the ts sound or ignore it
When I’m speaking English I usually just say sunami and pronounce it properly when speaking Japanese
Easy to explain. Starts with the last two letters of FARTS now repeat after me FARTSUNAMI now take out the FAR and behold you are nihongo jouzu’d
Its not really anything anybody would bat an eye if you pronounced the t in tsunami. Very minor
I think it’s definitely true that English speakers don’t naturally make that sound at the start of a word. Before I started learning Japanese ie reading kana, I’d assume the sound division in words like しつ was *shit soo*.
Now I know better, I say it differently.
Many English dialects have a softer t sound. I can speak RP and we laughed at the US woder for water. My local dialects use a glottal stop instead of many t sounds, depending on where they are ie wo’er for water.
Didn’t think you were supposed to? ARE YOU? TWO SNAMI??? TUHOSNAMI?
つ was a hard sound for me to learn to make. We don’t really have that sound in English the way Japanese does, and す sounds a lot more natural to us.
In English phonology, the ‘ts’ sound can only appear at the end of a syllable (or we can have ‘t’ at the end of one syllable and ‘s’ at the start of the next). So when (most) English speakers say the word, the word gets anglicized and the syllable initial ‘t’ is removed. You could also just say that the ts sound is substituted for s, but ‘ts’ is generally considered to be a consonant cluster and not a single sound.
English isn’t my native language and I pronounce it with the T
I definitely don’t say the T. I work for a Japanese company so I should ask the native speakers at work on Monday. I don’t say the T in my username either 😀
I brought this up after watching Jeopardy. The clue was words with silent letters and one of the answers was Tsunami.
What on earth? Yes we do?
I’m an English speaker and have always pronounced the T in Tsunami. When I started learning Japanese, the Tsu was easy for me because I already say it in tsunami. I’m very surprised to hear that other English speakers supposedly leave it out. Maybe it’s a regional thing?
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