Teach English in HuAxiJiedao - Chongqing

Pronunciation problems for learners in JapanOne of the few things to remember while going to Japan is that they only have a finite amount of pronunciations in japanese. For example they have five main vowels, a i u e o, and those can combine together in three ways, ai ei ou, to make different sounds. This is very few compared to all the different ways that English can pronunciation their words. What we have to remember is that the japanese students will only have eight different ways of pronouncing vowels. For these words we need to show the distinct pronunciation and allow the students to mimic it properly. The next item any English teacher must be aware of while teaching japanese students is that the letters R and L are the exact same letter in japanese. The proper pronunciation for their equivalent of R and L is actually RLD that rolls off the tongue focusing on the L sound. So the best thing to remember here is that one must accept both right and light to a japanese student sound exactly the same. The best way to teach the proper pronunciation is to remember that when starting off the word "right" one must close their lips to almost a pucker and then open the mouth with a smile while not using their tongues. While saying the word light, students must start the word off with their tongue touching the roof of their mouths then say the word. These exercises will be important so that one can understand what they are saying. A good tongue twister for the japanese students is "please take a right at the light". After this we must remember that in the japanese language consonants usually do not follow one or another. There is only one exception, the letter N in senpai (English we would write it as sempai). There are pauses in the language like tte and the best way to say that is just stop saying the word for a split second. However, this does not allow combinations such as BR to appear. Consonants must always be followed by a vowel so BR would be pronounced as BUR(ld) or MC for MAKU. When teaching words such as cockpit one must emphasize the consonants and not to allow and vowels to be vocalized. Now one must also remember that the japanese just introduces the V sound to their language but it is still a very raw concept and a lot of times they would actually replace the consonant for the letter B. Valentine's day becomes Balentine's day. This must be remembered and must focus teaching how your bottom lip touches your teeth and you hum a little to create the sound. One major thing that we must remember is that special sounds such as sh and ch are present in japanese there is not a th sound. Their closest representation for that, like that in Russia, is the za sound. This helps create the buzzing sound when one hears th but it has a consonant in it so it makes it difficult to get a similar sound for thing. There is also a ti sound in japanese but di, for example deep, does not exist. When the japanese see a di they think of ji sounds. All in all the japanese have a bunch of variants when it comes to their pronunciation and how they pronunciate in English. Knowing these special notices will all the teachers to know and how to tackle the issue.