Relaxed Pronunciation - Japanese

Japanese

Japanese can undergo some vowel deletion or consonant mutation in relaxed speech. While these are common occurrences in the formation of some regular words, typically after the syllables ku or tsu, as in 学校 gakkō (学 gaku + 校 ) "school" or 出発 shuppatsu (出 shutsu + 発 hatsu) "departure", in rapid speech, these changes can appear in words that did not have them before, such as suizokkan for suizokukan 水族館 "aquarium." Additionally, the syllables ra, ri, ru, re and ro sometimes become simply n or when they occur before another syllable beginning with n or d, and disappear entirely before syllabic n. This can happen within a word or between words, such as 分かんない wakannai "I dunno" for 分からない wakaranai "I don't know" or もう来てんだよ mō kite n da yo "they're already here" for もう来ているんだよ mō kite iru n da yo.

Relaxed pronunciation also makes use of several contractions.

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