Hello!
This has most likely already been done, but here goes:
Is づ pronounced du or zu?
Thanks
quadack
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In standard Japanese づ and ず have the same pronunciation. The reason they use different characters is mostly due to historical reasons.
You can read about it on Wikipedia: Yotsugana - Wikipedia
Or in Japanese: 四つ仮名 - Wikipedia
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殿様、ごめんなされ！
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I have no doubt that jneapan is correct, but I have heard it pronounced as “dzu” before in some songs. My native Japanese teacher does as well.
(here we go go hashiri-tsudzukeru…)
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How can じ = ず
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I think some regions have dialects which pronounce it that way…watch this video on 紀州弁(きいしゅうべん, the local dialect in Wakayama Prefecture, southern Kansai 紀州弁 ざ・ じ・ ず・ ぜ・ぞ - YouTube
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This is interesting but they were referring to ぜ as で and also ぞ as ど which doesn’t really make sense, why would they have two letters with the same pronunciation. Although I speak Farsi which has 4 letters for a single exact sound, but its a bit strange.
They don’t have two letters, they are simply mis-pronouncing the readings, because that’s the way that (older) people read in that country area of Japan. So even native Japanese are like “wtf are you saying!?” That’s why they were quizzing them on the show, to see how they mispronounce those hiragana in that region. If you went there, you probably couldn’t understand a lot of their words as they don’t speak anything like the standard Tokyo dialect which we all are exposed to in language textbooks and CDs etc.
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Dzu is an allophone for zu (both づ and ず), often found in the beginning of utterances, stressed mora, etc. In standard Japanese it’s not a phonemic sound. (And, like @jneapan implied with the screenshot, it’s not something that’s specific only for the u-row.)
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All I can say is, my Japanese teacher says “dzu”. With both the ‘d’ and the ‘z’ She’s a native of the Tokyo area.
I’m going to follow her example, but I’ll ask her about it on my next lesson to make sure I’m not misunderstanding or that she’s not dumbing it down for us.
But whatever she says will go for me. Thanks for a good question to ask, though.
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Naturally, she’ll mark the rest wrong. I’m going with dzu also.
Especially in the sense of tsudzukeru being the example
It’s still usually an allophone though. I’ve heard “midzu” for 水 before, and dzutto for ずっと, etc etc. It’s like saying that the tap in American English’s (which is same as a Japanese R) is phonemic instead of an allophone of /t/ between vowels, and likewise for some British dialects where the /t/ between vowels is pronounced as a glottal stop. While English does have a lot of glottal stops going on, they’re not phonemic.
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Ah. So you’re not saying it’s not a valid way to pronounce it, just that it’s not a separate syllable in itself.
All that stuff goes over my head.
Oh and yes… I finally figured out how to make it auto animate
I’m not a linguist, so some of it goes over my head as well. My attitude is, I’m doing this empirically, and if there’s a disagreement, my teacher wins. I would rather there not be disagreement though, or if there is, to at least understand where it comes from.
Well, it is a separate sound, it’s just one that native speakers of most dialects will not register as a different sound. To them it sounds like “zu”, even if they pronounce it in certain places as “dzu”. It’s like how the ら row can be pronounced as either a rhotic tap (/t/ between vowels in Am.English) or as L, and they’re both perceived as the same sound in Japanese.
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Bold of you to assume I can understand any japanese at all no matter the dialect…
Just kidding lol 
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