WaniKani New Audio Update: Part 2

No arguing about the old recording, that’s a pure hard ‘g’.

But the new recording and the genki one sound the same to me.

I can’t hear any ‘m’ sound in the 大声 clip though, it sounds like a nasal ‘g’ to me :man_shrugging:.

I haven’t heard any ‘m’ sound so far in the new recordings.

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Ok,thanks to you I compared this to かに and even I can hear the difference. I will try to find out what it is, because my concept of ‘g’ is different from that sound what is in genki file.

Tbh it’s been tripping me up a lot since I first noticed this phenomenon years ago, especially considering that most of the media I consume (anime mostly) doesn’t have people using this nasal ‘g’ except occasionally, but constantly hearing it in the recordings is sure to help in the long run.

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Thanks for the link. I was actually wondering how a listener of Japanese would interpret that pronunciation style. In the end, even though it is standard, it can come off as “posh” sounding.
When I was a child growing up in the “hood” I got teased for using “proper” English. Would a non-native Japanese speaker be viewed as a poser for using this pronunciation? Would it be off putting to some?

Not to big of a deal, but it sounds to me like the audio clip for 引き分け had too much of the start of the clip cut off.

I think it is fine? The attack time in ひ is a bit faster in Japanese than in English so it may sound weird at first.

The ひ is voiceless.

See Japanese phonology - Wikipedia

In many dialects, the close vowels /i/ and /u/ become voiceless when placed between two voiceless consonants or, unless accented, between a voiceless consonant and a pausa.[36]

/kutu/ > [kɯ̥t͡sɯ] kutsu 靴 ‘shoe’
/atu/ > [at͡sɯ̥] atsu 圧 ‘pressure’
/hikaN/ > [çi̥kaɴ] hikan 悲観 ‘pessimism’

Japanese speakers are usually not even aware of the difference of the voiced and devoiced pair

Even beginning Japanese students likely already pronounce the す in です unvoiced.

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I’m not sure what this has to do with the start of the sound? I’m well aware of devoicing.

EDIT: I’m just a bit confused what was the point that you were trying to make replying to me :sweat_smile:

It is quite interesting to see a community discuss about hearing differences when we’re mainly used to comparing visual ones. Very few are able to pause and consider that our ears might be failing us just as our eyes often do (brain “failure” in both cases), or that we may simply be unprepared or unable to notice them at all.

I would encourage most of you, with issues unrelated to taste, to take a moment before assuming that there is something wrong with the recordings. We’re mainly visual folk, and even then, on close inspection we can barely discern very basic visual information (if you’ve taken drawing classes you’ll know what I mean). All of the complexities of sound and language are not always immediately apparent to our relatively unskilled ears. On top of all that, we’re all language learners here, not experts.

This is not to discourage feedback. I’m sure the developers want that. It’s merely a point for consideration within yourselves. I truly find the discussion quite interesting.

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Which browser are you using? (Which reminds me, I still haven’t tested this on Chrome for @oldbonsai yet. Totally forgot after work last night; it was a long day, sorry.)

Which browser are you listening on?

I just pulled out both the MP3 and OGG files from the audio tag, and in the OGG one I can definitely hear the ひ, but in the MP3 version it sounds like a weird click before the い sound to me.

Might just be something about the MP3 compression that is messing with my ears I guess.


Chromium.

I think I was replying to @kyrias about the following:

Not to big of a deal, but it sounds to me like the audio clip for 引き分け had too much of the start of the clip cut off.

I don’t think anything is cut off. Rather, the first syllable is unvoiced.

Love wanikani and find it super useful, but really not enjoying the new audio updates. Preferred the old ones with a mix of male and female voices. The new one is almost robotic in comparison! Please change them back!

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I’ve never called for WK to change. I like WK as it is and don’t even use scripts. I generally dislike change and don’t understand why people constantly need to fix things that aren’t broken. This new audio is a case in point. It’s certainly not an improvement, being barked at every time I do a review.

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Eh, the previous audio was very inconsistent. Especially in the later levels, the audio was unbearable.

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Ah, I see. Thank you, I didn’t know that, and it certainly puts a different light on it.
But, all the same, I am definitely looking forward to a different voice. Doing my reviews has become quite unpleasant with this aggressive voice each time.

Not a problem I’ll ever encounter then! lol!

I’m looking forward to hearing the new female voice, personally.

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What I’d really love to see is audio for the context sentences, like iKnow has. That’s probably outside the scope of any planned updates, but one can dream…

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Great article. I just find it Interesting that WK chose the declining, posh, upper-middle class dialect from Tokyo as the basis for their brand-new, professionally-recorded audio files. Especially since all the confusion it has already stirred up due to the fact that many an English-based brain seems to perceive it as an “m” sound. To me it is a little bit like having a lesson on the English word “towel” and then having the recording be a southern gentleman from Atlanta saying “ta-al”. Great that the English learner will get the opportunity to learn about the southern dialect, but are they best served by having them try to speak like that? :man_shrugging:t2:

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