When I listen to the pronunciation of words on Wanikani that end in ん, I notice that often the female voice will pronounce the ending ん as “m”, while the male voice pronounces the ん of the same word as “ng”. I was just wondering - is this a male/female difference, or just a personal preference? An example would be 共通点 (Common Point), where I’m hearing the female pronounce the end as “m” as the male as “ng”, but I see this in most words on Wanikani that end with ん.
I’ve searched all over, but I can’t seem to find an answer to this question anywhere online.
I can’t say I’ve listened much to the audio on WK, but I can’t remember ever hearing 点 pronounced as “m” or “ng” - it’s always “n” in media I consume.
In any case, there are pronunciation differences between people, but that’s on a personal level and maybe dialect. There are no female/male differences that I know of.
I also think the “m” sound can only really happen in the middle of a word: like “sempai/senpai”, “kampai/kanpai” etc. never at the end.
Thank you, that was helpful. According to Dogan’s video, when the ん is at the end of a word it should be pronounced as “ng”. I just want to make sure my pronunciation is correct as I study; I will plan on using his video as a guide.
Those are all International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. And his use of the overly technical phonetic tems like “voiced uvular nasal” is the punchline of the joke he’s making here.
In my experience, when a Japanese person spells out a word that ends on ん, it will often pronounced as m. Like ごはん which usually ends with an ng-sound, will be spelled out like go - ha - m.
Not completely relevant to the question, but I find it interesting.
