ず pronunciation help (solved)

Ok I don’t know where to post this so this’ll just be a quick little thread.

Do you hear the pronunciation of ず as “zu” and sometimes “tzu/dzu”? My poor western ears keep hearing different versions.

水・みず - sounds to me like mizu
地図・ちず - sounds to me like chidzu

Just wondering if it’s a dialect/they’re the same/doesn’t matter/different depending on vocab thing.

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The romanization of dzu and zu is just to show when it’s づ vs ず isn’t it? As far as I’m aware, there is no phonetic difference.

In any case, ず is ず. There aren’t different ones.

I think he’s saying that sometimes he hears ず and づ as the same sound.

As I was saying… he should. They aren’t different. Just double checked with my girlfriend, even though I was pretty sure already.

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Yeah exactly, but for some reason I keep hearing different ず’s. Do you hear any difference personally between the ず in the examples I gave? Thanks btw

I don’t hear a difference. I asked my girlfriend just now “is the ず in みず and the ず in ちず the same pronunciation?” and she said yes, as well as yes to づ being the same despite the different writing.

Cool thanks! I want your girlfriend, only for language purposes though. I’m super gay

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I’ve always heard them as different. But now that I go back and listen to them, they’re not.:scream:

And yeah, it’s synthesized but google translate’s speaker agrees:

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On another thread we were talking about how HelloTalk is used both for language exchange and for hooking up.

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Haha isn’t there like a huge banner telling you to use it as a language learning chatting thingy and specificly NOT for hooking up? :wink:
Anyways I hate texting, so long distance relationship, no thanks

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IIRC doesn’t the sound depend on where it is in a word? I’m pretty sure we discussed this at some point.

ETA: Wikipedia (Japanese phonology) says:

Of the allophones of /z/, the affricate [d͡z] is most common, especially at the beginning of utterances and after /N/ (or /n/, depending on the analysis), while fricative [z] may occur between vowels. Both sounds, however, are in free variation.

Both sounds exist, but in most dialects they’re considered the same sound.

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