Shadowing problem: I can’t distinguish voiced and voiceless sounds in the middle of words without text

Japanese Language
1

Hello,

I am a native Chinese speaker, and because Mandarin does not have truly voiced sounds, I’ve run into some difficulties in my Japanese learning.

When a voiceless sound appears at the beginning of a word, I can usually distinguish it from a voiced sound and pronounce it correctly. However, when the voiceless sound is not at the start of the word, I can’t hear the difference. For example, I may hear watashi as wadashi, or anata as anada. If I repeat what I hear, I end up pronouncing it incorrectly as well.

Because I tend to lose focus while watching videos, I like to shadow while watching in order to stay concentrated. But since I can’t distinguish these non-initial voiced and voiceless sounds, I end up mispronouncing many words while shadowing, which is very frustrating.

Do you have any suggestions?
If I keep shadowing while watching videos, will this problem with distinguishing voiced and voiceless sounds improve naturally? Or do I need some targeted, focused training? If so, are there any learning resources you would recommend?

Thank you very much.

——26.02.09

Update:

Recently, I took lessons with two Japanese teachers and learned the following.

The first teacher is a native Japanese speaker who learned Chinese later in life. When I pronounced the Chinese “瓦搭西,” she said she heard it as the Japanese わたし. This suggests that the Chinese t and d sounds are both perceived by Japanese listeners as the Romanized t sound.

The second teacher is of Chinese and Japanese heritage, with both Chinese and Japanese as native languages, and holds a PhD in linguistics. He told me that because Mandarin Chinese does not have truly voiced sounds, Chinese learners often find it difficult to distinguish voiced sounds through listening. Therefore, when learning Japanese, Chinese speakers should also rely on visual input—looking at the written word to understand whether the sound is voiced or voiceless. Then, during pronunciation practice, they should consciously try to produce and hear the voicing distinction. Over time, this deliberate effort will gradually improve both their perception and production of voiced and voiceless sounds.

——26.02.15

2

I learned Thai through comprehensible input and it has a couple of consonant sounds that English doesn’t have at all. It took me a very long time (hundreds of hours) to be able to differentiate them from other similar consonants, and even longer to be able to reproduce the sounds not present in English. However, now they sound completely different to me. When I’m around other Thai learners who can’t differentiate them, it is very jarring. So, I would not be discouraged and just keep listening. But I would also suggest not shadowing if you are early in your Japanese learning journey. I think you want to be fully able to parse the sounds before you start doing that.

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3

Dear Dustin,
Your reply really encouraged me! It’s so reassuring to hear that with more immersion, people’s ability to distinguish sounds can improve. But for me, having to listen for hundreds of hours before speaking feels a bit like a distant “final level” :joy:
These past couple of days, I’ve gone through almost all the materials on distinguishing Japanese voiceless and voiced sounds available online, both in Chinese and English. I can now tell apart some of the more obvious ones, but there’s still a lot I can’t get right. To improve further, I’m thinking of finding a one-on-one Japanese teacher to help me correct this. Hopefully, my pronunciation will gradually start to sound more like a native speaker~

4

Just curious, do you have an immediate need to speak Japanese?
With Thai, it took me 1500+ hours before I could understand native material well, and I imagine it will take more with Japanese. So if you don’t need to speak Japanese right now, it might be worth it to just let it sort itself out, which it will eventually.

5

You could say I do have an immediate need to speak Japanese. When I just watch videos, my mind drifts off very easily, and after one or two minutes I lose focus completely. If I don’t shadow or speak along, it’s really hard for me to stay attentive.

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That’s okay. Your mind is going to drift. Mix up content to help focus. I find swapping to reading mode and following along with the writing forces me to focus much more for examlle

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