Georgian → Japanese
Japanese uses 31 sounds. You already own 10 of them from Georgian. The other 21 are the work — and 16 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 შვილი (child (son/daughter)).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal
Japanese: time · written "じ ji", "じゃ じゅ じょ"
Your /d͡ʒ/ is the one in ჯარი (army).
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 ღამე (night).
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 კარი (door).
the move: longer
Japanese: grandfather · written "いい ī"
Your /i/ is the one in ის (he / she / it).
the move: without the aspirated part
Japanese: umbrella · written "か き く け こ k-"
Your /kʰ/ is the one in ქალი (woman).
the move: without the aspirated part
Japanese: to eat · written "た て と t-"
Your /tʰ/ is the one in თევზი (fish).
the move: without the aspirated part
Japanese: moon · written "つ tsu"
Your /t͡sʰ/ is the one in ცა (sky).
the move: without the aspirated part
Japanese: ticket · written "ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ p-"
Your /pʰ/ is the one in ფული (money).
the move: uvular → palatal
Japanese: person · written "ひ hi", "ひゃ ひゅ ひょ"
German ich-Laut — h in front of i gets palatal.
Your /χ/ is the one in ხელი (hand).
the move: open-mid → close-mid
Japanese: station · written "え エ e"
Your /ɛ/ is the one in ერთი (one).
the move: open-mid → close-mid
Japanese: sound · written "お オ o"
Your /ɔ/ is the one in ორი (two).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal, without the aspirated part
Japanese: small · written "ち chi", "ちゃ ちゅ ちょ ch-"
Your /t͡ʃʰ/ is the one in ჩაი (tea).
the move: alveolar → bilabial
Japanese: winter · written "ふ fu"
Blow gently between the lips. Teeth never touch — this is not English f.
Your /s/ is the one in სახლი (house).
the move: unrounded, longer
Japanese: number · written "うう ū", "ウー"
Your /u/ is the one in ღამე (night).
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 Georgian 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.
teacher
ei is normally said as a long ē, not as two vowels.
Closest thing you own: — but open-mid → close-mid, longer.
Tokyo
Closest thing you own: — but open-mid → close-mid, longer.
mountain
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → approximant, velar → palatal.
I
Barely rounded compared with English w.
Closest thing you own: — but plosive → approximant.
book
A beat of its own, and it changes colour: [m] before p/b/m, [n] before t/d/n, [ŋ] before k/g, uvular [ɴ] at the end.
Closest thing you own: — but bilabial → uvular.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Georgian | Japanese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed, heavy clusters | Mora-timed |
| Stress | Weak and non-contrastive. Two-syllable words take it on the first syllable; longer words tend toward the third-from-last. No pair of Georgian words is distinguished by stress alone, which is why dictionaries do not mark it. To an English ear Georgian can sound evenly stressed, almost flat — that is correct, not a lack of expression. | 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
23 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 Georgian 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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