Spanish → Japanese
Japanese uses 31 sounds. You already own 16 of them from Spanish. The other 15 are the work — and 14 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: dental → alveolar
Japanese: water · written "ざ ず ぜ ぞ z-"
Your /ð/ is the one in nada (nothing).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal
Japanese: small · written "ち chi", "ちゃ ちゅ ちょ ch-"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
the move: postalveolar → alveolar
Japanese: moon · written "つ tsu"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
the move: velar → palatal
Japanese: person · written "ひ hi", "ひゃ ひゅ ひょ"
German ich-Laut — h in front of i gets palatal.
Your /x/ is the one in jamón (ham).
the move: labiodental → bilabial
Japanese: winter · written "ふ fu"
Blow gently between the lips. Teeth never touch — this is not English f.
Your /f/ is the one in fuego (fire).
the move: unrounded
Japanese: sea · written "う ウ u"
Say /u/ but DON'T round your lips. The commonest giveaway of a foreign accent.
Your /u/ is the one in luz (light).
the move: longer
Japanese: grandmother · written "ああ ā", "アー"
Length is meaning: おばさん obasan is 'aunt'.
Your /a/ is the one in casa (house).
the move: longer
Japanese: teacher · written "えい ei", "ええ ē"
ei is normally said as a long ē, not as two vowels.
Your /e/ is the one in mesa (table).
the move: longer
Japanese: Tokyo · written "おう ō", "おお"
Your /o/ is the one in oso (bear).
the move: alveolar → alveolo-palatal
Japanese: sushi · written "し shi", "しゃ しゅ しょ sh-"
Not English 'sh' — tongue flatter and further forward.
Your /s/ is the one in sol (sun).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal, voiced
Japanese: time · written "じ ji", "じゃ じゅ じょ"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
the move: unrounded, longer
Japanese: number · written "うう ū", "ウー"
Your /u/ is the one in luz (light).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Japanese sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Genuinely new
Nothing in Spanish sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
flower, nose
Closest thing you own: — but labiodental → glottal.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Spanish | Japanese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Mora-timed |
| Stress | Fully contrastive, and mercifully written: if a word breaks the default pattern (stress on the second-to-last syllable for vowel/-n/-s endings, on the last otherwise) it carries an accent. Three-way minimal sets are common and the accent is the only thing separating them. | No stress in the English sense — syllables are not louder or longer, so a Japanese speaker reading English tends to flatten it, and an English speaker reading Japanese tends to hammer syllables that should be even. |
What you have that Japanese doesn't
11 sounds with no job in Japanese. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your Spanish has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Japanese from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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