# Question regarding vocabulary "One Thing" **URL:** \ **Category:** WaniKani\ **Created:** [August 26, 2022, 8:29am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307 "2022-08-26T08:29:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jhendrix13](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@jhendrix13](https://community.wanikani.com/u/jhendrix13)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 8:29am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/1 "2022-08-26T08:29:28Z")
I am just starting to learn vocabulary. I just got to my first vocabulary, [One Thing](https://www.wanikani.com/vocabulary/%E4%B8%80%E3%81%A4). I am a little confused as to why when I play the pronunciation, I only hear “stotsu.” I don’t hear “hitotsu.” Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Vanilla](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/vanilla/32/521468_2.png) [@Vanilla](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 8:33am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/2 "2022-08-26T08:33:47Z")
They’re saying ひとつ The hi is devoiced because of how…well… devoicing works in Japanese. I don’t know what else to say other than you have to learn what sounds are what, so it’s best to just know that’s what ひ will sound like when devoiced. ---
**Author:** ![x90PT](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/x90pt/32/488461_2.png) [@x90PT](https://community.wanikani.com/u/x90PT)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 8:42am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/3 "2022-08-26T08:42:28Z")
Is it devoiced though? I hear the ひ clear as day. ---
**Author:** ![Vanilla](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/vanilla/32/521468_2.png) [@Vanilla](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 8:46am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/4 "2022-08-26T08:46:13Z")
Yes it is, as it should be. Devoicing at the start of a word/sentence like this is generally less drastic than in the middle so it might feel harder to hear for you? But I’m sure if you heard an unvoiced one side by side the difference would become a lot more apparent. ---
**Author:** ![pm215](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/pm215/32/510099_2.png) [@pm215](https://community.wanikani.com/u/pm215)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 8:50am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/5 "2022-08-26T08:50:51Z")
“I hear the sound clearly as ‘this syllable’ even though its specific sound instantiation in this environment isn’t the way it shows up in other contexts” is what you should expect when your brain has got used to listening in a foreign language, so congratulations 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Vanilla](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/vanilla/32/521468_2.png) [@Vanilla](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 8:55am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/6 "2022-08-26T08:55:08Z")
Also this, lol. Happens a lot for entire words and phrases when you’re listening to poor enunciation. People who aren’t familiar with the language would have no hope of transcribing it but it sounds clearer to you. ---
**Author:** ![pm215](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/pm215/32/510099_2.png) [@pm215](https://community.wanikani.com/u/pm215)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 10:05am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/7 "2022-08-26T10:05:48Z")
Incidentally, in the [1879 “Exercises in the Yokohama Dialect”](https://archive.org/details/revisedenlargede00atki/page/18/mode/2up) the counting numbers are rendered ‘stoats; stats; meats; yotes…’ so this difficulty with the devoicing for English speakers is long-standing. (Read the rest of the booklet; it’s great.) ---
**Author:** ![Vanilla](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/vanilla/32/521468_2.png) [@Vanilla](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 10:12am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/8 "2022-08-26T10:12:00Z")
This is literally cursed. ---
**Author:** ![fallynleaf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/fallynleaf/32/393300_2.png) [@fallynleaf](https://community.wanikani.com/u/fallynleaf)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 11:17am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/9 "2022-08-26T11:17:48Z")
Atsie sammy eel oh piggy nigh? ---
**Author:** ![jjigae](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/jjigae/32/430520_2.png) [@jjigae](https://community.wanikani.com/u/jjigae)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 11:49am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/10 "2022-08-26T11:49:25Z")
I had no idea what your comment meant until I clicked on the link We can only hope that someone used that statement in good faith! XD ---
**Author:** ![Kazzeon](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/kazzeon/32/288210_2.png) [@Kazzeon](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Kazzeon)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 11:58am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/11 "2022-08-26T11:58:17Z")
I still don’t know what it’s supposed to be… ---
**Author:** ![Gorbit99](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/gorbit99/32/7307_2.png) [@Gorbit99](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Gorbit99)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 12:21pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/12 "2022-08-26T12:21:46Z")
![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/c/9/5/c95320687755bfee705dfa048a5f3487a1248c7f.png) ---
**Author:** ![fallynleaf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/fallynleaf/32/393300_2.png) [@fallynleaf](https://community.wanikani.com/u/fallynleaf)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/13 "2022-08-26T12:31:00Z")
> [@Kazzeon](#): > > I still don’t know what it’s supposed to be… I can’t quite figure out “piggy nigh” (I’m assuming it ends in ない, but “piggy” is a mystery to me), but I think “atsie sammy eel oh” is 暑い 寒い 色. Maybe?? ---
**Author:** ![nikosant](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/nikosant/32/424191_2.png) [@nikosant](https://community.wanikani.com/u/nikosant)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 12:43pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/14 "2022-08-26T12:43:25Z")
![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/8/1/b/81b45581dc552a5ac10ef6dfe195e656f5d6da6b.png) It says this on the top of the left page, but I still do not understand. ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/6/7/b/67b2a9032b9fc9fca7f2c9cb421c186da15ecaa8.png) From the previous page ---
**Author:** ![Gorbit99](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/gorbit99/32/7307_2.png) [@Gorbit99](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Gorbit99)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 12:45pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/15 "2022-08-26T12:45:51Z")
> [@fallynleaf](#): > > Atsie sammy eel oh piggy nigh It’s not japanese, it’s pidgin, piggy is probably not a real japanese word [https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/2p15dd/comment/cmse8fu/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/2p15dd/comment/cmse8fu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ah yes, indonesian ---
**Author:** ![kokopelli121123](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/kokopelli121123/32/4590_2.png) [@kokopelli121123](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kokopelli121123)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 1:09pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/16 "2022-08-26T13:09:38Z")
Here’s a helpful video from Dogen that explains the rules of devoicing Japanese vowels: [![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/d/f/2/df254728cf37cbd0a232188222b1837d217fa842.jpeg "Japanese Pronunciation 101: Devoicing! / 日本語の母音の無声化について！ | Dōgen") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYQM7BhJJns) tl;dr i and u are devoiced when between consonants that could get a tenten/dakuten but don’t have one. Also sometimes at the end of a word. ---
**Author:** ![Kazzeon](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/kazzeon/32/288210_2.png) [@Kazzeon](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Kazzeon)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 1:20pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/17 "2022-08-26T13:20:00Z")
> [@fallynleaf](#): > > 暑い 寒い 色. Oh, I did figure out 暑い寒い but I didn’t think of it as “seasons”, but I get it now. Yeah, it was mostly piggy tripping me up. ---
**Author:** ![SevenZeven](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/sevenzeven/32/484024_2.png) [@SevenZeven](https://community.wanikani.com/u/SevenZeven)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/18 "2022-08-26T16:33:56Z")
Another thing I’d note is that the reason you’re hearing something like an “s” sound is because “ひ” doesn’t map perfectly on to the English “h”, but instead has more of a hiss to it. [![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/2/7/9/279cea291d337e132320baf95b4b2e6bf4f91836.jpeg "How to Pronounce Ha Hi Fu He Ho - Japanese Pronunciation") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXlOm641FY) ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/kimera/32/1928_2.png) [@kimera](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 7:07pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/19 "2022-08-26T19:07:42Z")
lighthouse = foonev high kin serampan nigh rosokoo. I feel like there’s a joke in there … fooney = boat (船), rosokoo = candle (ろうそく), serampan might be sailor something? ---
**Author:** ![HaseebYousfani](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/haseebyousfani/32/523164_2.png) [@HaseebYousfani](https://community.wanikani.com/u/HaseebYousfani)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 7:27pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307/20 "2022-08-26T19:27:11Z")
This is great? This is cursed, it’d be easier to just teach someone how to read Romaji [Next page](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-regarding-vocabulary-one-thing/58307.md?page=2)