Edo

[James Brandon]

Edo - the former name of Tokyo and the name of a historical period (in Japan's history) - is not found in any dictionary I have. The only 'Edo' one founds is in relation to a tribe in Nigeria... That's pronounced /'edou/ with the stress on the 1st syllable and /ou/ as in the verb "to sow", or "to show".

I would like to know: (a) What the pronunciation is in Japanese; (b) What the pronunciation is in English.

Thank you

PS I can only write in English; I do not know Japanese.

 

[Flaminius]

Hi James,

Japanese pronunciation of 江戸 (Edo) is /edo/ with a pitch accent on the second syllable. Japanese /o/, by the way, is a monophthong. I have heard quite a few English speakers pronounce Edo and they seem to pronounce it /edo/ too but with a stress accent on the first syllable.

Hope this helps.

 

[James Brandon]

Thanks! At long last, a reply - I'd tried in the English forum and had drawn a blank... I was in Japan in May for 3 weeks but did not get round to asking! As I understand, what you call a monophthong would be the typical /o/ sound in Japanese, as in 'Kyoto' or ''domo arigato', as opposed to the /ou/ sound in English found in words such as 'to blow', 'to sow', etc (which, indeed, is a diphthong).

 

[Outsider]

[...] as opposed to the /ou/ sound in English found in words such as 'to blow', 'to sow', etc (which, indeed, is a diphthong).

And in "so", "go", etc.

 

[James Brandon]

Indeed, and many more!

 

[Flaminius]

Sorry for confusing you two. Perhaps I should have simply said this is a short /o/.

 

[Outsider]

I don't think you confused any of us. We were just paraphrasing what you had said, to make sure we had understood it well.

 

[Flaminius]

Look, the O's in James' example are not uniform!

'Kyoto' or ''domo arigato'

I would write them as;
kyōto
dōmo arigatō.

The O's in bold face are the one to go with Edo.

 

[James Brandon]

Flam,

OK, it's absolutely clear to me now, even if I can't quite 'hear' the difference between the two kinds of 'o' in Japanese! To me, they all sounded the same and were, I would say, similar to a Spanish 'o' (as in 'hola' or 'olvidar'), i.e. fairly flat and easy to reproduce to someone who knows a Romance language. (But Japanese sounds have nothing in common with English ones.)

When I was in Japan, to my surprise, I found that ordinary people understood what I was saying, limited as it was, 90% of the time. Chinese being a tonal language, when I was in mainland China, I found the opposite, that is to say that locals would be unable to understand what I was attempting to say 90% of the time.

 

[jazyk]

OK, it's absolutely clear to me now, even if I can't quite 'hear' the difference between the two kinds of 'o' in Japanese! To me, they all sounded the same and were, I would say, similar to a Spanish 'o' (as in 'hola' or 'olvidar'), i.e. fairly flat and easy to reproduce to someone who knows a Romance language. (But Japanese sounds have nothing in common with English ones.)

Correct, but make the o with a macron longer, similar to the au in haute or German schon.

 

[sneeka2]

James, the ō is actually really simple, it's just twice as long as the o. Japanese syllables all have the same length when speaking. Take "dōmo arigatō" for example (in Japanese どうも　ありがとう):

ど-う-も あ-り-が-と-う
do-o-mo a-ri-ga-to-o

Clap your hands while speaking it, really easy.

The "ō" is actually an おう in Japanese. お is the /o/ sound, う is actually /u/. But when う follows an /o/-sound, it itself becomes an /o/. It basically simply lengthens the お, same as o+h in German for instance.

So you could also write "doumo arigatou", but that seems confusing for English speakers who'll try to slide the o.

 

[James Brandon]

OK, that makes it clearer still... I can see I could become an expert on Japanese phonetics!

I am sure I was mispronouncing most place-names and others (with the help of bilingual maps and my dictionary...), but I found people were making a big effort to understand me and, in the main, succeeded in doing so, which probably says more about their attitude than about my Japanese-language abilities!

Thanks