そういうことか

[kachibi]

I heard it is pronounced as "Soo-yu-ko-to-ka"

I wonder about the pronunciation of いう as simply "yu".

Shouldn't we pronounce the two hiragana separately as "i-u"?

It is not a 拗音, why we pronounce いう like いゅ?

Is it just because of a matter of speed? I mean if pronounced slowly, it should be "i-u". But once it is pronounced quickly, then "yu".

 

[karlalou]

Sure, I admit that I pronounce it as something like 'iyu'.
It's just needs too much attention to precisely pronounce it 'i-u'. I believe most of Japanese actually pronounce it something like 'iyu', and some people even write it ゆう, but many of us don't like to see it written as ゆう, but it should be written as いう.

 

[kachibi]

So it is just a matter of speed? Since it is faster, so i u is pronounced like yu? But if I consciously speak it slowly, then I can speak i u?

 

[karlalou]

I believe we always pronounce いう as close to 'iyu', and sometimes as 'yu-u'. I find myself saying 'yu-u', the slower and clearer I try to say it.
I don't think anyone say 'i-u' unless we are telling how to spell out something in kana.

I think it's a matter of pronounceability. I think it's, maybe not exactly, but similar to the examples of 連声（れんじょう） such as 反応 is はんのう and never はんおう.

 

[karlalou]

OK. Generally as the standard Japanese, 言う or そういう are considered to pronounce as [yu-u], and we write it as いう. It's just such a custom, just like we read こんにちは as [kon-ni-chi-wa].

If I see a word unknown to me like 伊右, I would probably pronounce it [i-u].