Basic Terminology

Here I will explain the absolute basics to get started with phonetics, enjoy!

1. Vowels

Vowels refers to speech sounds that are realized without a proper obstruction of the vocal tract. In other words, when we pronounce vowels, our articulatory organs are relatively open.There are 3 main things we talk about when it comes to vowels.

1. Vowel height
2. Vowel backness
3. Rounding

Vowel height refers to how much the tongue is raised when articulating a certain vowel. Vowel backness is the horizontal position of the tongue, where the tongue is raised. Rounding is how much the lips round during the articulation of a certain vowel.

Japanese Vowel Chart

For example, い is classified as a high front vowel because the tongue is raised up and is in the front part of the mouth during articulation.

2. Consonants

Consonants are speech sounds in which the air is obstructed in some way. May it be an absolute obsturction (stops/plosives) may it be an incomplete but very narrow obstruction (fricatives).

We can clasify Japanese consonants into the following table.

The table is made so that we start at the front of the mouth (lips – labia) and continue further up to the the glottis.

Let's start from the manner of articulation.

3. Manner of articulation

Manner of articulation refers to the interaction between articulatory organs when producing a certain speech sound. The question we should ask ourselves when talking about the manner of articulation is "How is the air released?".

Nasal consonants

• These consonants are articulated with the passage to the nasal cavity open – the air passes through the nose because of a lowered velum.

• Plosives
• When articulating plosives (also called stops), the articulators (articulatory organs, such as the tongue, velum or hard palate) touch, therefore completely stopping the airflow for a brief moment, then the air is released.
• Fricatives
• They are called such because they produce a kind of friction by making the articulators go really close to each other, but not letting them fully touch. Take the phoneme (the smallest unit of sound) [f] for example. We put our upper front teeth on our lower lip and produce a friction by making these 2 articulators really close, and since they don't stop the airflow, but produce this friction of narrowing the airflow, we call [f] a fricative.
• Affricates
• These consonants are plosives that change into fricatives. For example ち is just t + shi. Here the T is a plosive that immediately follows the fricative し.
• Taps
• The tap [ɾ] (used in syllables (moras) ら・り・る・れ・ろ) is the fastest sound in Japanese. It's articulation is at the gum ridge (that part besides your teeth) of upper front teeth, where the tongue quickly taps it then goes immediately down. Taps are generally classified as the speech sounds where one articulator (the tongue for example) is thrown against another.
• Approximants
• We can say that approximants are close to fricatives, but they don't make the airflow passage as narrow, therefore they don't create a friction. In Japanese phonetics, they are also called semivowels or glides (Because you can glide between them, more on that later).

4. Place of articulation

Place of articulation is the point between 2 articulators where some obstructions occurs. As articulators approach each other, they create a point through which the air passes, thus making a unique sound.

1. Nostrils
2. These are the openings of the nasal cavity that the air passes through when producing nasal consonants.
3. Lips
4. Lips are used in Japanese for bilabial consonants, where 2 lips interact with each other in some way. For example, In japanese the sound ふ is a bilabial fricative, while in english the sound [f] is labiodental, which means we don't use both lips, but upper teeth and lower lip in order to produce the sound [f].
5. Teeth
6. Alveolar ridge
7. Alveolar ridge is the bump behind our upper teeth where alveolar consonants are articulated using our tongue. For example when pronouncing [t], which is an alveolar plosive, we briefly touch our tongue against the alveolar ridge, thus stopping any airflow, then letting the air pass by releasing the tongue.
8. Nasal cavity
9. This is the space inside our nose that air passes through when articulating nasal consonants. This passage is made possible thanks to lowered velum. In other words, lowered velum is what makes the passage to the nasal cavity open.
10. Hard palate
11. This is where palatal consonants are articulated. For the phonemes [ç] and [j] we raise the tongue against the hard palate and create a constricted passage of air. Pre-palatal sounds are articulated somewhere between the hard palate and alveolar ridge. For example the phonemes [ɕ] and [ç] are similar to each other, but [ɕ] is closer to the alveolar ridge than [ç].
12. Tongue
13. When talking about tongue in phonetics, we talk about whether we make the consonants with the front of the tongue (coronal consonants) or the back of the tongue (dorsal consonants). Coronal consonants are [d], [s], [n] etc. but dorsal consonants are [k] or [x] and so on. The coronal consonants are further split into other categories, namely apical and dorsal. Apical consonants are speech sounds produced by obsturcting the airflow using the tip of the tongue. Laminal consonants are produced by obstucring the airflow using the blade of the tongue (blade is right behind the tip).
14. Velum (soft palate)
15. Velum is the place further behind in the mouth, where velar sounds are articulated.
16. Uvula
17. Uvula is that little dangly extension at the back of the mouth. We use it to pronounce the uvular nasal [ɴ] in Japanese.
18. Glottis
19. Glottis is the opening between vocal folds.
20. Vocal folds
21. Vocal folds are the 2 moveable muscles found in larynx. We can make consonants voiced by making them vibrate. When the vocal folds are not touching and are apart from each other the glottis is open, but when they are held together the glottis is closed.

5. Phonetic transcription

Any phonetic transcription should be written using the square brackets []. We can make transcription broad or narrow, depending on how much detail we want to write down. Broad transcription is the least detailed, we only transcribe the base of the phonetic features of utterances, whereas in narrow transcription we try to go into more detail.

Broader transcription of 日本:

    [ɲihoɴ]

Narrower transcription of 日本: (taken from wikipedia)

    [ɲ̟ihõ̞ɴ]

6. Voicing

When vocal folds vibrate (that is, when they are close together and there's a sufficient airflow), they make some otherwise unvoiced phonemes voiced. This is called voicing. We mark voicing using 濁点 (゛, literal translation would be "muddy mark") in Japanese.

    か – unvoiced

    が – voiced

There's also a thing called 半濁点 (゜) which is used for p sounds.

7. Note at last

Make sure to take things with a grain of salt. The more it goes for phonetics. It's very difficult to record an authentic speech for research.