1.2 Long and short vowels change the word — Epoché
What you will be able to do Hear the difference in twenty pairs of words that are distinguished by vowel length and nothing else. Produce the difference in your own voice, and check that you are producing it. Say ここ and こうこう so that a Japanese listener hears two different words. Know that this is the point at which English speakers lose the most meaning, and why the loss is invisible to you. Prerequisites : lesson 1.1 — counting beats, and the three characters that take a beat without being a syllable. Lesson 1.1 gave you the method. This lesson is the one place where the method pays for itself immediately, because vowel length in Japanese is not a matter of accent but of vocabulary. A short vowel and a long vowel make two different words, in the way that bit and bet make two different words in English. English has no phonemic vowel length English vowels do vary in length. Compare the vowel of beat with the vowel of bit : the first is longer. But the length is not what distinguishes them — the quality is, and the length comes along for the ride. There is no pair of English words that differ only in how long you hold one identical vowel. The consequence is that your ear was never trained to treat duration as information. It was trained to treat duration as expression: you lengthen a vowel in English to emphasise, to hesitate, to be sarcastic. Duration in English carries attitude, not meaning. In Japanese it carries meaning, and the vowel quality does not change at all. おじさん and おじいさん contain the same vowels; one of them is held for two beats instead of one. To your untrained ear both words simply sound like ojisan , one of them said slightly slower — which your ear will file as "the speaker was being emphatic" and discard. That is why the loss is invisible. You do not hear yourself making the mistake, and you do not hear the distinction being made to you. The only route out is deliberate counting, which is why lesson 1.1 came first. What a long vowel actually is Two beats of the same vowel, with nothing between them. Not a diphthong: せんせい does not end in the ay of day , it ends in a held [e]. Not a stressed vowel: neither beat is louder than the other. Not a pause: the sound is continuous. The way to produce it reliably is to stop thinking of it as one long vowel and think of it as two short ones with no break — exactly as the kana spell it. とうきょう is to-o-kyo-o , four beats; if you say each of the four as a separate short vowel and then join them up smoothly, you will have said it correctly. This feels mechanical because it is. Aim for mechanical. The hardest cases for English speakers are long [e] and long [o], because those are exactly the two vowels English turns into diphthongs. Say day and then でえ : in the English your tongue rises during the vowel, in the Japanese it must not move at all. Same for go against ごお . Minimal pairs Twenty pairs, distinguished by vowel length alone. Say each pair out loud twice — once the way that comes naturally to you, once with deliberate counting — and note the ones where your two versions sound the same. Short Long いえ — house いいえ — no え — picture ええ — yes (casual) と — door とお — ten おい — nephew おおい — many, numerous とし — year, age とうし — investment とき — time, occasion とうき — pottery ほし — star ほうし — service; a Buddhist monk くろ — black くろう — hardship, trouble かこ — the past かこう — to process, to work on おじ — uncle おうじ — prince ゆき — snow ゆうき — courage くき — a stem, a stalk くうき — air じょし — a grammatical particle じょうし — one's boss しょかい — a first meeting しょうかい — an introduction よい — good ようい — preparation きて — come! きいて — listen! とる — to take とおる — to pass through おじさん — uncle, middle-aged man おじいさん — grandfather, old man おばさん — aunt, middle-aged woman おばあさん — grandmother, old woman しゅじん — husband しゅうじん — prisoner Four of those pairs are worth singling out, because you will meet them in your first month in Japan and the cost of getting them wrong is not abstract. いえ and いいえ : "house" and "no". These will occur in the same conversation about where you live, and the difference is one beat at the front of the word. おじさん and おじいさん , おばさん and おばあさん : middle-aged and elderly. Addressing someone with the wrong one is rude in a way that is immediately obvious to everyone present. きて and きいて : "come" and "listen". Two extremely common commands, one beat apart. Where the length hides Two places, and both are spelling rather than sound. First, long [o] is usually written おう and long [e] usually えい , so the second character is not the same as the first and you may not register it as length at all. とうし looks like to-u-shi and is to-o-shi . せんせい looks like it ends in i and ends in a held e . Whenever you see おう or えい inside a word, suspect a long vowel. Second, in katakana the length is carried by ー , which does not look like a vowel at all. English speakers read straight past it. コーヒー has two of them; leave both out and you have two beats instead of four. The small list of words that write long [o] with おお rather than おう is worth knowing, because they are common: とおい (far), おおい (many), おおきい (big), とお (ten), とおる (to pass through). There are about twenty such words altogether and you will meet most of them this phase. In real sentences Each sentence contains a long vowel in a common word. Read aloud, count the beats on the marked word, and hold the vowel deliberately. Japanese English ここのくうきはひどいな。 [1] The air here is terrible. — くうき 3 beats どこのこうこうにいってるの？ [2] Where do you go to high school? — こうこう 4 beats まだこうこうせいなの？ [3] Are you still in high school? ゆうきをだして。 [4] Be brave. — ゆうき 3 beats, not 2 しょうかいありがとう。 [5] Thank you for the introduction. — しょうかい 4 beats じょうしにおこられてしまう。 [6] The boss will be angry at me. — じょうし 3 beats じゅうじごろですか。 [7] Is it about ten o'clock? — じゅうじ 3 beats もうよるのじゅうじだ。 [8] It's already ten o'clock at night. Sentence six is a small demonstration of why this matters in an office. じょうし is your boss; じょし is a grammatical particle. Say the short version and you have