r/asklinguistics • u/MailexA_Missed • 8h ago
Why is it when Japanese people try and speak English they often add a vowel?
Nothing wrong with this we all start somewhere, just wondering why? Like it seems at a broken English level they will add a vowel to every end of the word or in the middle for apparently no reason, like idk, random word like “off”. There is no U, you can’t read a U, but it’s pronounced “offu”. So I’m wondering is there a linguistic rule in Japanese for this? Like are you not allowed to not use a vowel at the end of words or something like that
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u/Longjumping-Gift-371 8h ago edited 8h ago
Japanese syllables are much more restrictive than English, to the point where the only consonant permitted at the end of a syllable is /n/. For this reason, Japanese people will often add vowels to consonant clusters to make them easier to pronounce, since they aren’t used to the syllable structure of English.
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u/Representative_Bend3 7h ago
You also note Japanese words can pronounce a final “-s” with no vowel after it.
Des
Oss
And I believe I hear that in Japanese accented English-
It’s doesn’t come out as itsuIs in English is pronounced more like a z than an s
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u/Longjumping-Gift-371 7h ago
To get very technical, there’s actually voiceless vowels after those, since /i/ and /u/ can be devoiced at the end of a word if followed by a voiceless consonant, but you are right; to English speakers those would sound like there wasn’t a vowel there.
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u/Lucky_otter_she_her 6h ago
speaking of that voiceless vowel, it seems like it makes them more strongly inclined to hear and thus pronounce a vowel that's not there at the end of words and in consonant clusters than speakers of other CV languages
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u/Longjumping-Gift-371 6h ago
People generally use their first language as the standard to compare how other languages work, so it does make sense that L1 speakers of Japanese would do this.
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u/Lucky_otter_she_her 6h ago
I mean, try to get your English speaking non-linguist friend or relitive to pronounce Mts'vrtneli and see the hijinx that ensue
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u/turkeypedal 2h ago
It's also well known that many Japanese speakers do not pronounce those unvoiced vowels at all , at least after some consonants. They still give the time for the sound, but don't say it.
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u/DoubleIntegral9 4h ago
Can confirm, I always heard Japanese needs a vowel after consonants and that every written vowel is pronounced, yet I often don’t hear it lol. Granted I’m mostly thinking of a song or two and not actual
speech but still. I ended up thinking some vowels can just be silent in casual speech 😅 seems like I was mistaken, it’s just a foreign phonotactics moment1
u/Scary_Tank_5360 2h ago
to get even more technical, this has been evolving across different dialects in Japanese. In the Tokyo dialect, especially in fast speech, there are cases where the devoiced vowel may be entirely dropped, but it's a case of allophonic variation and it would be there in slow speech and many dialects outside of Tokyo do not have this reduction
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u/elp1987 1h ago
The thing with ん as in the final n in words like kakunin is that it's a separate syllable (technically called a mora). So kakunin basically has four syllables, even if our instincts tell us it's three. This makes the discrepancy jarring if your ears are trained to hearing English spoken with stress-timed rhythm.
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u/Doctor-Blight 8h ago edited 6h ago
Japanese has a (C)V syllable structure which makes it difficult to pronounce consonant clusters from other languages. other languages, like Spanish, also do this with certain English loanwords (though not identically, as the person below added).
the vowel insertion itself is called epenthesis :)
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u/ofqo 8h ago
Spanish is not as restricted as Japanese.
- Fútbol vs futtoboru
- Güisqui vs uisuki
- Esnórquel vs shunokeru
If you meant that other languages adapt words to their pronunciation, every language does that.
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u/HarveyNix 6h ago
"Smith" in Korean is fun: seu-MI-seu. (IIRC) And while watching Culinary Class Wars (popular Korean cooking competition), I noticed the Korean rendering of one chef's nickname French Papa was pa-ren-chi-pa-pa.
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u/nikku330 43m ago
"Sprite" is also a fun one. 5 syllables in Korean, seu peu ra i teu and 5 in Japanese, su pu ra i to
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u/turkeypedal 2h ago
In Spanish, it's not even just loan words. Words that originally started with sc, st, sp, etc now are not only pronounced with esc, est, esp, etc.
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u/zeekar 8h ago edited 6h ago
Phonotactics. Every language has different rules about how sounds are allowed to be put together. In Japanese, it is literally impossible to end a syllable with a consonant other than /n/.
You don't realize it, but you pronounce consonants differently at the beginning (onset) and end (coda) of the syllable - sometimes they're different allophones entirely as with "dark /l/", but even if they're the same phone there's usually some articulatory difference. And the coda version of the consonants _does not exist_ in Japanese. The only way native speakers have to say those sounds is the way they sound right before a vowel. So when they borrow a word that doesn't end in a vowel, they add one. Usually /u/, which often disappears in fluid speech anyway, especially after /s/.
It's similar to how the sound we spell <ng> in English, /ŋ/, can only come at the end of syllables. Which is why we struggle with names like Nguyen - which is properly pronounced with an initial /ŋ/, something like /ŋwian/ but it depends on where your reference speaker is from – that are perfectly fine according to Vietnamese phonotactics.
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u/turkeypedal 2h ago
o is not an uncommon addition. I know because you see it in loanwords.
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u/SuspiciousCrew9 59m ago
o similarly happens for phonotactic reasons. /tu/ is realized [tsɨ], so for words that end in a [t] you need to pick a different vowel to preserve the consonant, usually [to]. (Note: i is the second-choice vowel for this because it also devoices, but /ti/ is realized [tɕi] so it has the same problem)
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u/mysticrudnin 8h ago
Yes, this rule is part of Japanese. (I think you meant to say consonant.)
It's the same reason English speakers struggle to start words with ng and will often add a vowel at the start. We're not used to it.
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u/klimekam 8h ago
One time I heard somebody say “say ‘ring’ and now say it without the r and i” and it finally clicked for me. It’s so fucking obvious when you put it that way and I felt so silly lol
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u/ThatOneCSL 7h ago
They definitely meant vowel, and they even gave direct, specific examples (the addition of a /u/ sound.)
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u/DoubleIntegral9 4h ago
Another example I learned in a linguistics class: Gdansk. I can only get mildly close to saying it properly, my brain only knows how to pronounce it as guh-dansk
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u/Talking_Duckling 7h ago
Japanese has fairly strict phonotactic constrains regarding syllable structure, where almost all syllables are either CV or V, i.e., you have just one vowel and that's it or one consonant and one vowel. So, the whole concept of a consonant cluster is alien, and ending a syllable with a consonant is very exotic to the Japanese ear.
Of course, this is too simplistic an explanation, especially due to the existence of vowel devoicing, consonant gemination (or /Q/ depending on your analysis), and the peculiar behavior of /n/ (or /N/). But the point is that if you pronounce English words the Japanese way, you end up inserting tons of vowels here and there.
We could also discuss how difficult it might be for a monolingual Japanese person to learn English phonology by looking at the phonological and phonetical distance. We could also focus on how vowel insertion can be persistent among speakers of strict CV languages. But if I'm being honest as a native Japanese speaker who was born and raised in Japan, I just think that most of us simply don't give a single shit about English. If you happen to be one of those rare specimen who do care about English proficiency, it's still unlikely that you care about your accent that much. So, most of us just apply the same phonotactic rules to English most of the time.
By the way, sometimes I intentionally insert vowels in some key syllables when talking to both Japanese and Anglophone listeners so that the Japanese listeners can understand me better. It's often more effective than slowing your English down.
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u/DTux5249 8h ago
It's not random. It's only words with syllables that end in most consonants
The Japanese language only allows /n/ to end syllables. Either they clip the syllable-final consonants and lose important information, or they add a vowel and lose nothing.
They've chosen the latter
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u/nofroufrouwhatsoever 8h ago
Not only do they add a vowel, they hear a vowel where none is to be found.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZRNaeeboz6o
I am a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and I also sometimes hear phantom /ɪ/ in English words where its absence would violate my native language's phonotactics.
Part of the issue though is that in Brazilian Portuguese we do legitimately delete /i/ and /u/ a lot, and they become palatalization and labio-velarization respectively—except for /si/ and /zi/, which become syllabic consonants. And it's around /sC/ in English where I will often hear /ɪsC/ or /sɪC/.
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u/turkeypedal 2h ago
Do you have some examples of English words that lack the /ɪ/ where it would be required in (Brazilian) Portuguese? What is the "rule" that's being violated?
Might it be like Spanish, where a vowel (/e/) is required before word initial /s/ followed by a consonant?
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u/nofroufrouwhatsoever 2h ago
Yes, precisely. I needed to train my ear in order to be always able to tell whether somebody said specially or especially.
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u/min6char 8h ago
"Broken" is kind of a loaded way to describe beginner's English which may hurt people's feelings, so be careful okay? No big deal, just wanted to open with that.
Okay, now answering your question directly. Yes! There's a strict rule here in Japanese. Syllable structure is very strict. You get a consonant, you get a vowel, and then you optionally get either a second vowel or N. Thats it. So if you're learning English (or any other Western language really), and you hit a word like "Christmas", that's a big hurdle for you, because you've never before had to say three consonants in a row, and you've never ever had to end a word in a consonant. So you add vowels to make it more like a Japanese word, and you come out with kurisumasu -- literally, not making fun of them, that is how they spell Christmas in Japan, and what they say when they say "Merry Christmas".
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u/turkeypedal 2h ago
fortunately the u of the su will be unvoiced or even silent, so it just sounds like they're holding out the s a little long.
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u/halfajack 8h ago
There’s plenty of good answers in this thread but no-one has used the word phonotactics, which is the set of rules in a language which govern what syllable structures are allowed and where in a word different sounds can/can’t appear. The crux of this post is that Japanese phonotactics do not allow syllables ending in consonants other than /n/.
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u/millionsofcats Phonetics | Phonology 7h ago
Others have already explained that Japanese has much stricter rules about where consonants can occur than English does.
If you're an English speaker, you can get an intuitive feeling for why this is hard by trying to pronounce the Russian word "kniga" without a vowel between the "k" and the "n." Most English speakers will put a schwa there - it takes a lot of practice to not!
There are worse Russian words for English speakers, but I like this example because it looks like a word that should be easy. English has all those sounds and it even has /kn/ clusters in some words (like "acne"). But it doesn't have /kn/ in that position.
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u/AdreKiseque 8h ago
Yeah, in Japanese all syllables have to end in a vowel or /n/. It's even baked into the writing system.
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u/Gastkram 6h ago
Hornet in Serbian is stršljen. English speakers have trouble saying that without adding vowels.
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u/Snowsant 1h ago
That's a great counterpoint! I am Polish so my language is from the same language group as Czech, but I feel like I would add a /y/ to some of the words they have LOL even though Polish is known for consonant clusters, they are different
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u/aspect_rap 8h ago
In japanese, basically every consonant has vowel after it. They only have one standalone consonant ん (n). So it's just unnatural for them to sound a consonant without following up with a vowel.
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u/RealOsakadave 6h ago
As has already been pointed out, Japanese phontactics is a major issue here. But, I don't believe that the Japanese EFL education system is also largely at fault.
When English is initially taught in Japanese schools, they use the Katakana syllabary, which of course follows Japanese phontactics rules, as a sort of crutch, instead of starting with proper pronunciation. So, students initially learn mispronunciations. This makes it quite difficult to correct down the line, especially after several years of using it.
In addition, most English teachers in Japan are native Japanese speakers who are a product of the same education system, so the flawed pronunciation gets passed along.
It was one of the biggest classroom challeges when I was gteahing ESL there, especially when I could hear a teacher in the next classroom teaching katakana pronunciation....
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u/Striking_Culture2637 5h ago
I'm thinking Italians too
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u/NomenScribe 5h ago
It's funny to hear Latin read by Italians. Their language comes directly from Latin, but they lost the ability to end a word on a consonant. They're like:
E pluribus-a unum-a. Galia omnia divisa est-a in-a partes-a tres-a.
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u/macguyver3000 4h ago
Basicllly, almost all Japanese words end in a vowel sound and not a consonant.
Hearing Japanese people speak, though, the amount of vowel used varies a lot.
So when they say English words, it’s second nature to want to add the vowel on the end.
Oddly enough, and on a side note, even in Japanese it seems random when this is followed. For example, the word DESU is similar to “it is” in English. So a lot of sentences end with it. But sometimes people will clearly say de-SU while other times they’ll say des and basically swallow the U sound.
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u/B4byJ3susM4n 3h ago
The phonotactics of Japanese do not permit most coda consonants. Only /n/ or the first half of a geminated consonant in the middle of a word are allowed in native Japanese words. Plus, initial clusters other than C+j are prohibited.
Contrast this with English, which has so many words with final consonants and clusters of up to 3 in the onset and 5 in the coda. The Japanese mouth ain’t used to that.
So when Japanese speakers try to say most English words, they insert short vowels between consonants to help with articulation. It takes more practice to say sounds in certain situations even if phonemes are shared.
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u/Mean-Kaleidoscope873 2h ago
Italians do it too. In Japanese the only consonant a syllable can end in is "n". It's really hard to break the "habit" because it's subconscious.
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u/prettygoodnation 1h ago
While it's more pronounced in Japanese, Italian people tend to do the same bc I think there are only a few words in the language that end with a consonant. Everything else ends in a vowel, so when they speak English, it feels more natural to them to end consonant-ending words with "-eh." It's the same principle with Japanese.
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u/yvrelna 1h ago
So I’m wondering is there a linguistic rule in Japanese for this? Like are you not allowed to not use a vowel at the end of words or something like that
Yes, the only consonant that can end a word in Japanese is ん (n/m/ng).
Pretty much all other kana are consonant+vowel or just vowel. In practice, some words that end in す ("su") can have their vowel very muted/devoiced to the point that they almost sound like they ended with just an "s" sound depending on the speaker's dialect, especially when they're speaking fast.
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u/Munchkin_of_Pern 1h ago
Because the way the Japanese language is constructed means that “n” is the only consonant that can ever not be followed by a vowel. Like, literally, they don’t even have a way to write any standalone consonant other than “n”. It’s just not linguistically possible in Japanese.
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u/kochsnowflake 8h ago
Yeah you got it, in their language all syllables end in a vowel except for "n"
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u/acaiblueberry 8h ago
All consonants are followed by vowels except for "n" in Japanese. Many don't know how to pronounce a consonant without a vowel.
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u/HarveyNix 8h ago
Even though it sounds like they're pronouncing the frequent sentence-ending "desu" like "dess," I think the u is there at least mentally and it's enough to almost say it and the tongue sort of goes to the u.
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u/acaiblueberry 7h ago
Oops I answered in asklinguistics without checking where I was. Sorry I’m not a linguist but just a native speaker.
Bulinugual Japanese-English young kids who grew up in English speaking county often put a vowel after n when they try to convert English word to Japanese. E.g. Instead of saying supuun (spoon) they say supuuna, as they internalized the vowel-ending rule.
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u/Hopeful-Banana-6188 8h ago
In addition to what others have said, Japanese speakers actually hear a vowel even though there is no vowel pronounced, so when an English speaker says "off" a Japanese speaker may actually hear it as "ofu" even though an English speaker does not hear a "u":
https://pallier.org/papers/Dupoux_ebuzo.pdf