Japanese Accent Features
I have created a resource for learning all the consonant and vowels and diphthongs in Japanese accented English. There is a PDF file which presents the various sounds of English individually in a chart, with each one written out in the International Phonetic Alphabet. [If you are unfamiliar with IPA, you can listen to the sounds associated with the symbols on my website here. (note this is a Flash resource, so iOS devices can’t access it.)]
I have created audio files to accompany this handout. You can either access these audio files from this webpage, or you can download them ALL in a single .zip file if you want to put them on your phone or iPod. I would import them into iTunes, or some kind of equivalent, to do that. They are all in .mp3 format.
The various vowels are referred to here by their Lexical Set names (a word that is supposed to be representative of the group of words that have that vowel, so FLEECE stands in for words with the EE (IPA [i] ) vowel.) I have carefully made sure that there is time after the words in the word lists and after each practice sentence for you to repeat what you hear. Drilling is important in learning the sounds.
You should have listened to the Audio Samples and read the Accent Overview before accessing these files. It is worth noting that as I demonstrate each sound, I tend to do a fairly STRONG accent of English, and you will probably be doing a LIGHTER version of the accent, depending of course on your character choices. I figure it’s better at this point to be a bit too strong than too light.
FILES
ZIP Archive of All the Audio Files
Japanese Features PDF
MP3s
Intro
Consonants
Fleece
Happy
Kit
Dress
Trap
Guarantee
Bath
Palm
Lot
Thought
Goose
Duke
Strut
Hurry
Schwa
Nurse
Face
Price
Choice
Mouth
Goat
Near
Square
Start
North
Cure