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Sorry the “HOW DO I SAY” thread seems a bit dead. So I apologize if I’m wasting space on the board but I’m not sure if I’d get an answer there.
When I say things like, 「私は日本語を話ます」, do I pronounce the を? It’s really hard to say the o sound twice like in 「日本語を」. I never hear Koichi and the girl (sorry I don’t know her name) pronounce it. I just would like verification from you guys.
When を follows an お-sound, it can get a little lost, but it’s still there. In normal speech, it’s not going to be separately enunciated – it’s more an extension of the vowel. It’s particularly fun in sentences like 勉強をする, because it’s already a long-o sound before the を (and also を is optional in compound する verbs).
Even more fun: 王を往々覆う （おう を おうおう おおう）
Also, the word 大祖父 is pronounced おおおおじ according to jisho.org (rikai-kun is saying だいそふ, which seems a tad easier).Back in days of yore, I asked a similar question to this, using the example sentence 心を食べます – Koichi recorded himself saying it and uploaded it so I could listen. That was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I’m almost certain that was on the old forum, which is now no more. Is there some way I might still be able to access that, I’m wondering? It could still be on TextFugu’s servers, and I’m sure there’s a way to see all the media that’s been uploaded to site (remember doing it before but I can’t remember how and it was a long time ago).
So I just pronounce おを as if I were saying おう? Just the long お sound?
Pretty much. Maybe a tiny rise in pitch on the を.
Hm, I don’t think it’s *quite* the same as the long お sound, I’d say there’s usually a slight waver in the voice to emphasise that it’s not all one word. For example, しょう and しょを wouldn’t sound exactly the same. Same goes for something like しょう おすし, there’d probably be some kind of vocal distinction there to show it’s two words; it wouldn’t be pronounced しょおおおおおおすし, I don’t think.
It’s hard to really describe what I mean by “waver” or “vocal distinction”, you’ll just have to listen to more Japanese people speaking and you’ll get the hang of it :D
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