When I studied ESL teaching, we had an analysis of English vowels in terms of mouth shape and degree of jaw opening. But my observation of Japanese is that they move the lips and jaw very little.

I noticed this too! When I speak “better” Japanese, I have to physically restraint my mouth not to enunciate so much, but I can see it work in how my wife and others respond to my Japanese better. Hard to do without actively concentrating though.

Parodies of foreigner Japanese usually have exaggerated vowels.

Yup, seen that too. Mecha-ike did a good sketch where they really did a good impersonation of a foreigner introducing himself: watashi wa NE, HaraNIshi-san desu

I like the idea of poetry and songs. I have studied singing of traditional music (nagauta). But I find that some other tasks, like speaking extemporaneously in front of a group, may take so much processing power that pronunciation gets degraded. *Sigh*

In college, my Vietnamese teacher was very strict with pronunciation. We had to give a lecture in Vietnamese on the topic of the week each week, and if we made mistakes, she made us do it over. I usually did ok (expect the difference in Vietnamese between “t” and “đ” which I struggled with), but people who were less comfortable speaking in front of a group, using a foreign language, choked.

All the same, when I studied in Vietnam, I was real, real glad I had learned better pronunciation in school, compared to other exchange students.

When I studied ESL teaching, we had an analysis of English vowels in terms of mouth shape and degree of jaw opening. But my observation of Japanese is that they move the lips and jaw very little. They can do A I U E O without moving much at all. I guess its all in the tongue and throat. Parodies of foreigner Japanese usually have exaggerated vowels.

I like the idea of poetry and songs. I have studied singing of traditional music (nagauta). But I find that some other tasks, like speaking extemporaneously in front of a group, may take so much processing power that pronunciation gets degraded. *Sigh*

Robert: “I think you need to record yourself and compare it to a model recording.” Or have a wife who’s kind of strict about your pronunciation. My wife does a good impersonation of Americans speaking Japanese, and I’ve seen TV shows where they poke fun at American-sounding Japanese, so I have a reasonably good idea what I am doing wrong, but I have to really consciously restrain myself not to do it.

One other suggestion my wife had was just listen to lots, and lots of Japanese, as the constant exposure to correct Japanese might influence how I speak it. Too soon to tell if it’s working or not.

Arunlikhati: Having studied college Vietnamese, I actually know exactly what you mean by the letter ư. My teacher had described it as saying “oo” while smiling, which seems to work, and does sound like Japanese ‘u’ now that you mention it.

Good point about Vietnamese, similar stress as in English could not exist due to the shorter, mono-syllabic words, but I hadnt’ thought about the poetry aspect either.

My wife has shown me how classical Heian-era Japanese poetry sounds like and as you correctly stated, there is a sound and flow to it quite foreign to English poetry (was going to post about it one of these days if I can get a sound-clip). That’s a very interesting idea, and worth a try.

The issue with stress is a pernicious one—but at least you’ve identified it correctly! Many people have the same issue trying to learn Vietnamese, another language without stress. Turns out this is where poetry and music/lyrics can be particularly useful. For example, quintessentially English poetry like the limerick relies on a metric frame that would sound absurd in Vietnamese or Japanese precisely because these languages have no stress. Likewise, the Vietnamese luc-bat structure makes no sense in English because we don’t tie specific tonal melodies to each word. But reading Vietnamese poetry, speaking it out loud and writing poems in line with classical structures helps non-native speakers get a sense of the rhythm that otherwise eludes them. I wonder if spending more time exploring Japanese poetry might be likewise helpful.

Japanese having less sounds is much less tolerant of differing accent and I dare say that because there is such a small percentage of non-native speakers Japanese are not used to trying to deal with this.

Anyhow. I found that it’s hard to correct your accent. Mostly because you can’t hear it. I think you need to record yourself and compare it to a model recording. I’ve even seen applications where you try to match waveforms (in a similar way to how deaf people are taught an accent)
Written explanations of pronunciation just seem too vague and imprecise to me.

I think I tend to mix stress into elongated vowels いえ、おう etc. I also think regardless I’m going to have a strange furrin accent.