French → Japanese
Japanese uses 31 sounds. You already own 16 of them from French. The other 15 are the work — and 11 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: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal
Japanese: sushi · written "し shi", "しゃ しゅ しょ sh-"
Not English 'sh' — tongue flatter and further forward.
Your /ʃ/ is the one in chat (cat).
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 fleur (flower).
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 jour (day).
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 chat (cat).
the move: longer
Japanese: grandfather · written "いい ī"
Your /i/ is the one in lit (bed).
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 été (summer).
the move: longer
Japanese: Tokyo · written "おう ō", "おお"
Your /o/ is the one in eau (water).
the move: postalveolar → palatal
Japanese: person · written "ひ hi", "ひゃ ひゅ ひょ"
German ich-Laut — h in front of i gets palatal.
Your /ʃ/ is the one in chat (cat).
the move: unrounded, longer
Japanese: number · written "うう ū", "ウー"
Your /u/ is the one in jour (day).
the move: plosive → affricate
Japanese: moon · written "つ tsu"
Your /t/ is the one in table (table).
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 French 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.
time
Closest thing you own: — but fricative → affricate, postalveolar → alveolo-palatal.
small
Closest thing you own: — but fricative → affricate, postalveolar → alveolo-palatal.
cherry blossom
One tap — between an English r, l and d. Never the English r.
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → tap.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| French | Japanese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Mora-timed |
| Stress | This is the one that surprises everyone: French words have NO fixed stress. Prominence lands on the last syllable of the rhythmic GROUP, not of the word — so the same word is stressed differently depending on where it sits. 'Un chocolat' stresses -lat; 'un chocolat chaud' moves it to chaud and the word chocolat loses it entirely. There are no French minimal pairs by stress, because there is nothing to contrast. | 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
20 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 French 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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