Japanese → French
French uses 36 sounds. You already own 16 of them from Japanese. The other 20 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: close, but not identical
French: eight · written "u+vowel"
Say /y/ and glide into the next vowel. nuit, lui, pluie.
Your /w/ is the one in わたし watashi (I).
the move: bilabial → labiodental
French: flower · written "f", "ph"
Your /ɸ/ is the one in ふゆ fuyu (winter).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar
French: cat · written "ch"
Your /s/ is the one in さかな sakana (fish).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar
French: day · written "j", "g (e,i)", "ge (a,o)"
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
the move: rounded
French: you · written "u", "û"
Round your lips for /u/, say /i/. NOT English 'oo'.
Your /i/ is the one in いま ima (now).
the move: rounded
French: little · written "eu", "œu (open syllable)"
Your /e/ is the one in えき eki (station).
the move: rounded
French: day · written "ou", "où", "oû"
Your /ɯ/ is the one in うみ umi (sea).
the move: alveolar → labiodental
French: wine · written "v", "w (wagon)"
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
the move: open → open-mid
French: mother · written "è", "ê", "ai", "ei"
Your /a/ is the one in あさ asa (morning).
the move: close-mid → open-mid
French: door · written "o + consonant"
Your /o/ is the one in おと oto (sound).
the move: close-mid → open-mid
French: good · written "on", "om"
Your /o/ is the one in おと oto (sound).
the move: approximant → nasal
French: mountain · written "gn"
Your /j/ is the one in やま yama (mountain).
the move: fricative → lateral
French: bed · written "l", "ll"
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
Words you may say identically
Two or more French 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 Japanese 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.
fear
Closest thing you own: — but open → open-mid, rounded.
bread
Closest thing you own: — but open → open-mid.
brown
Parisians merge it into /ɛ̃/: brun = brin.
Closest thing you own: — but open → open-mid, rounded.
dough
Merging with /a/ for most younger speakers.
Closest thing you own: — but front → back.
street
Uvular — at the back, like a light gargle. Never rolled at the tip.
Closest thing you own: — but alveolar → uvular.
child
Closest thing you own: — but front → back.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Japanese | French | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Mora-timed | Syllable-timed |
| Stress | 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. | 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. |
What you have that French doesn't
15 sounds with no job in French. 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 Japanese has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned French 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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