When pronouncing じ or any other “J” sound, do you make more a “J” sound like in “Jogging”, or a “zh” sound like in “Beige”? From what I understand, it’s more of a “hard J” sound, like from “jogging”, if it comes at the start of a word, or after a ん, and more of a “zh” sound like form “beige” if its after a vowel sound. For example, the “J” sound in “漢字”, and the “zh” sound in “大丈夫”. Is that correct? I can’t seem to find a definitive answer to this anywhere online for some reason. If that is correct, then does the “hard J” sound become a “zh” sound even if the word starts with that sound but comes after a vowel? Like alone the “J” sound in “時間” would be said like the “J” sound in “jogging”, but if I’m saying “1時”, does it become “zh” sound, or keep the “J” sound?
It’s a hard J like “jogging” all the time.
I don’t think that’s true. The じょ in 大丈夫 is definitely not what I would call a “hard J”.
Well, I mean, it’s not a zh like “beige” either.
Ultimately, it sounds like itself. “Hard J” is perhaps the nearest English equivalent.
I agree. I don’t really know how else to describe it, but to me the じょ in 大丈夫 sounds more like the ge in garage. Like this ʑ sound.
The sound is slightly different than both of those in English, but as an approximation it is correct the way you said it. If you want to take a look at the more correct sounds take a look at the IPA on Wikipedia.
Also most native speaker’s can’t hear the difference between the ji and dji sound, and depending on the person they will use a different sound in different instances, but I would recommend you to pronounce it the way you described it above, as it’s probably the most common way to say it. So dji at the beginning and after ん and ji after a vowel. Like 時間 as djikan and 2時間 as nijikan and 3時間 as sandjikan.
The same logic applies to ず btw.
Edit: with dji I mean the “J” sound and with ji the “zh” sound.
Thank you, this is exactly what I was talking about.
I know the perfect short for this situation:
He is so genius! 
I love his deliberrrrate Amerrrrrican accent in words like「成RRAない」
Don’t you mean “zhenius”?
I’m pronouncing it
じ = dschi
ち = tschi
し = schi
Perfect video. Thanks.
I only wish I knew what they were saying!