eな!

Japanese Pronunciation Laboratory

Category

On this site, you can learn the characteristics of Japanese pronunciation by listening to and comparing various audio recordings.While studying Japanese, have these thoughts ever crossed your mind?

I'm going to be in a speech contest, but I'm not confident about my pronunciation!

Since I'm making this effort to learn Japanese, I want to be able to speak it naturally, with accuracy.

I've been studying Japanese for a long time now, but I still have trouble differentiating "su" and "tsu".

Japanese Pronunciation Laboratory is here to help you with these hopes and concerns.
On this site…

  • You learn the characteristics of Japanese pronunciation by listening to a lot of recordings and imitating a lot of sounds.
  • You can use it all for free.
  • There is no need to register.The login is for teachers.
  • Explanations are offered in English, Vietnamese, Korean, and Chinese.
  • This site has a smartphone version, too.

How to...

This site comprehensively covers all aspects of accuracy and naturalness in spoken Japanese.
Take a look at the tabs on the homepage.

Items for accuracy
- Special Moras
- Voicing
- Other (tsu sound, ra-gyo, yo'on vs chokuon, za-gyo vs zya-gyo)

Items for naturalness
- Devoicing
- Pitch Accent
- Compound Word Accent
- Prominence
- Intonation

Improving pronunciation for accuracy will make it easier to communicate what you want to say.

Let's learn about the tsu sound (つの発音) under Others.

First listen to the conversation.

Can you tell that the sounds are not correct?
Look at the diagram to see where your tongue should be, when pronouncing tsu.

Now try the listening activity.
Listen to the audio and choose the word that you hear (left or right).

If you take note of your choice, it'll be easier to check your answers later.

Scroll down to see the answers.

The next practice is Speaking (words).
Listen to the audio and imitate the sounds.

Listen to how tsu sounds, depending on where it is in the word!

Finally, what you've been waiting for, conversation practice.There are four types of dialogues.
Listen to the audio and imitate the sounds.Talking with friends will help, too!

Have you mastered the tsu sound?
Some of the items come with assignments, but when studying alone, there is no need to hand them in.


To check your own pronunciation in the Practice and Assignment sections, you can try using voice input to see if it transcribes what you said correctly, or upload a recording to HiNative! (Introduction article) to get feedback from others!

Last update