The sound of kana ん (n)
In Japanese, the kana ん (n) is considered a sound that can stand by itself. It sounds somewhat like “uhm”.
In normal speaking the ん sticks to the preceding kana. For example, りんご (ringo, apple) is pronounced “rin-go”, not “ri-n-go” (ri-”uhm”-go). Note that because ん is considered one mora (beat), “rin” (composed of 2 mora, “ri” and “n”) should sound longer than “go” (only 1 mora). The elongation is done by holding the “n” sound for a while.
However, in songs ん is oftenly detached and voiced by itself! This is very funny considering that the same thing doesn’t happen in Bahasa Indonesia and English. Consider Indonesian words like “jantan”, “makan”, and “jalan”. In songs (and conversation), they are always pronounced as “jan-tan”, “ma-kan”, and “ja-lan”. The same thing holds in English (e.g., “wo-man”, “ten”, “a-gain”, “A-me-ri-can”). ‘n’ never gets its own note.
An Indonesian or English song where the ‘n’ is forcibly separated would sound wacko. Try to imagine it… However enter the Japanese music world and a lone ‘n’ doesn’t seem weird at all… Two examples:
Anshinkan (Berryz Koubou): Nee itsu datte anshin shitai no yo (a-n-shi-n)
Aozora ga Itsumade mo Tsuzuku You na Mirai de Are! (Morning Musume): So donna toki mo jibun jishin shinjite GO (do-n-na, ji-bu-n, ji-shi-n, shi-n-ji-te)
Of course ん can also stick to the preceding sound like in normal speaking, so it all depends on the songwriter. In these following examples the ん isn’t separated:
Sakura Mankai (Morning Musume Sakura Gumi): aa sakura mankai, nee sakura mankai mune no naka (man-ka-i)
Lemon Iro to Milk Tea (Morning Musume): onnaji kuukan kuukan eiga no naka kansei kansei (on-na-ji, kuu-kan, kan-sei)
I’ve said that in speaking (conversation, speech, anything other than songs) the ん is normally attached. That is almost always the case. However, I’ve actually encountered the isolated case several times! Here’s one example from a casual talk:
Sugaya Risako: ma… zenbu… kawaiin desu kedo, atashi ga ichiban… (i-chi-ba-n)
Of course, you can deliberately separate the ん if you want to give a slow motion effect. However I don’t consider that normal speaking. Nevertheless, this is what Sayumi does on her radio show:
Michishige Sayumi: Mooningu Musume Michishige Sayumi no “Konya mo Usa-chan peace…” (ko-n-ya)
To finish, I offer the audio file that contains all the above examples:
n-sound.ogg (duration 1:01, 515 KB): MediaFire mirror; 3000mb mirror; Indonesian mirror
(Audio made using the open source audio editor Audacity. To play the audio file in Windows you might need to install the codecs from Illiminable.)
Tags: Berryz Koubou, Hello! Project, Michishige Sayumi, Morning Musume, Sugaya Risako
March 13th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Wow. Thanks for this lesson; the songs in question make much more sense now.
March 14th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
You’re welcome. I’m glad that the article was useful :).
March 16th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Numpang nimbrung nih Mas…
Mas, saya sering menganalogikannya dengan harokat di bahasa Arab. Analogi yang tepat?
.
Mungkin di lagunya Kinki Kids (dengan judul Hakka Candy):
Hanya saja, bagaimana kita bisa membedakan antara yang 2 mora dengan yang satu mora tapi ditahan? Misal pada “dona” dan “donna”?
Ho-n-to-u ni do-u-mo a-ri-ga-to-u go-za-i-ma-su
March 16th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Numpang nimbrung nih Mas… (lagi)
Eh, contohnya bener dona dan donna ya? Sepertinya salah contoh…
Maksudnya sih, misal ada kata dengan kana “n” di tengah dan satunya lagi kata dengan DUA “n” di tengah….
March 18th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
>> Saya sering menganalogikannya dengan harokat di bahasa Arab. Analogi yang tepat?
Mungkin kalau pake pengertian kasar, awam, dan gampangan bahwa “mora” dan “harokat” sama-sama melambangkan panjang-pendek, bisa dijadikan analogi. Tapi dalam ilmu linguistik, istilah-istilah seperti “mora” dan “harokat” (ga tau bahasa Inggrisnya) mestinya punya definisi yg cukup ketat. Aku nggak punya pengetahuan di situ, tapi mungkin saja seorang linguis akan mengatakan bahwa konsep “mora” dan “harokat” beda dan bisa menjelaskan perbedaannya.
>> Mungkin di lagunya Kinki Kids
Punya banyak file Johnny’s?
>> Maksudnya sih, misal ada kata dengan kana “n” di tengah dan satunya lagi kata dengan DUA “n” di tengah….
Misalnya membedakan antara suara “minna-san” dengan “mina-san” (keduanya sah dan artinya sama)? Mestinya sih bisa dengan mudah dibedakan, karena kalau di yang pertama kamu akan mendengar suara “min” sedangkan di yang kedua suku kata pertama adalah “mi”. Itu bukan yang dimaksud?
Atau apakah yang dimakud bagaimana cara membaca kata seperti “kinen”? kin-en (dilarang merokok) atau ki-nen (suvenir)? Kalau ditulis pake kanji atau kana kan mestinya jelas. Nah kalau pake romaji, kalau ada kasus ambigu dan maunya n-nya dipisah sih mestinya ditulis “kin’en” tapi aturan ini nggak diikutin semua orang. Misal di sebuah lirik lagu, yang harusnya “kon’ya” (malam ini) ditulis “konya” (orang bisa salah ngira ko-nya). (Namida ga Tomaranai Houkago, Morning Musume) Makannya, romaji sucks
March 19th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Numpang nimbrung nih Mas…
Itu sebutan untuk apa Mas? Ndak dong…
Hehe, dua-duanya… Iya ya.. Kata sensei saya juga begitu. Hambatan terbesar belajar (untuk orang Indo, khususnya pelajar atau mahasiswa) bahsa Jepang setelah konjugasi verb adalah kanji. Cuma kalau diromajikan semua jadi ga sampai maksudnya…
Terima kasih ya…
March 21st, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Uhm… Kinki Kids kan salah satu bagian dari Johnny’s entertainment… Itu yg kumaksud