Desu pronunciation

my teacher says the right way is to drop u, but nagisa in clannad or araragi pronounce it without dropping so is it acceptable too ?

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Standard Japanese is like your teacher says. I’m not familiar with the show you mention, but there are variations such as regional dialects, or babytalk, etc where accents differ. At first, it is best to learn standard Japanese.

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The standard is to not pronounce it, but in some cases like when you’re trying to be extra polite, you enunciate it.

The same goes for other words like ă”ă–ă„ăŸă™ă€‚ Usually it’s like goh-zai-mah-s, but if you’re trying to be more respectful, it’ll sound like goh-zai-mah-su~.

The teachers will greet the parents of their students this way for example (and bow several times even when on the phone). Older Japanese people tend to greet this way out of respect as well. But don’t worry too much about it.

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The more listening and speaking experience that you get, the more you will notice the range of variation here. I just love how the Kansai dialect, and particularly the Kyoto dialect and even more specifically the Gion dialect, often emphasizes the すvery strongly. It is beautiful to my ears. :slight_smile:

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It can also sound a bit more girly and playful, even if it’s not in an overly formal situation.

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Always trust your teacher over anime, many voice actors adopt unnatural “cartoonish” manners of speech in this type of media to give the characters more personality. See also yakuwarigo.

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There is also a range for how the same person may pronounce the す ending for various words as well. Just something I’ve noticed from my love of voice acting. You might stretch it out and pronounce if fully as part of one sentence and how the flow of that went (like talking while thinking and going with the flow sort of thing) and then not having it noticeable otherwise? (I wasn’t particularly thinking desu here but also masu. )

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Oh for sure. The su is used very expressively.

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Now I remember. I watched a YT vid about geisha culture. Basically, it was a relaxed interview with a woman that was not an oiran, but a ć€Ș怫, so a position never connected to sexual slavery, but rather being a master of social entertainment, poetry, dance, music and song, a really high grade performer for the elites, who also paint their teeth black.

In any case, she made sure every syllable was pronounced clearly including the す. It sounded very refined to me. :slight_smile:

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