English Pronunciation for Japanese Speakers

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Areas of Difficulty for Japanese Speakers

Consonants

I.  /s/ vs. /sh/

Make the distinction between the two sounds using the following minimal pairs:

Sill/shill                 sign/shine        simmer/shimmer          sue/shoe
Sealed/shield         brass/brash      same/shame                 single/shingle
Now try this tongue twister:
She sells seashells by the seashore. 

II.  /t/ vs. /ch/

Distinguish between these sounds in the following minimal pairs:
Time/chime            till/chill tar/char tide/chide batter/batcher           
tang/Chang                  batting/batching 

III. /b/ vs. /v/

Practice pronouncing /b/ and /v/ in the following minimally-paired words carefully:

Berry/very             boat/vote          buy/vie            rebel/revel
robe/rove               libber/liver       bile/vile            bane/vane     

IV.  /l/ vs. /r/

Practice discriminating between /l/ and /r/ in different word positions and in consonant clusters:

Light/right                         late/rate                        locket/rocket
Believe/bereave                 collect/correct              filing/firing
Stall/star                            mole/more                   foal/four
Flight/fright                       flame/frame                 flail/frail
Blight/bright                      bloom/broom               blink/brink
Pleasant/present                 play/pray                     Blake/break

V.  /w/ and /y/ in word-initial position

Pronounce /w/ and /y/ in the following words clearly:
Would                   wool                womb              wood
Year                     yeast                yield                yearn 

VI.  Consonant clusters

Consonant clusters do not exist in Japanese.  Because of this, Japanese speakers of English insert a vowel before or after English consonant clusters.  Practice pronouncing the consonant clusters in the following words without inserting a vowel before or after them:

Sky            Mexico            scoundrel         frisk     mixture            skit      

VII.  Word-final consonants

Practice pronouncing the final consonant in the following words:  Please do not insert a vowel after the final consonant.

Match        sandwich         church             merge              search 
                              Twitch       splurge            converge          switch              clinch

Vowels:
Japanese does not make a distinction between short (lax) and long (tense) vowels.  Japanese speakers’ rendition of English vowels falls between the short and long vowels.  Practice discriminating between the following short and long vowels of English:

I.  /I/ vs. /i:/
Practice pronouncing the short and long vowels in the following minimal pairs:

Hit/heat      fit/feet              sit/seat             fill/feel             live/leave

II. /e/ vs. /ei/
Make the distinction between the short and long vowels in the following minimal pairs:

met/mate    red/raid            led/laid             fed/fade           wed/wade

III. /U/ vs. /u:/
Distinguish between the short and long vowels in the following word pairs:

full/fool     foot/food         should/shoot                book/boot

In addition to the above short (lax) and long (tense) vowels, these vowels are also difficult for Japanese speakers of English:

IV. /e/ vs. /ae/
Make the distinction between these vowels in the following minimal pairs:

met/mat      set/sat              fed/fad             led/lad              wed/wad
                 
V. /^/ vs. /a:/
Distinguish between the short and long vowels in the following minimal pairs:


curd/card   heard/hard       curt/cart           burn/barn         hurt/heart

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