Hi, My name is valen.
Recently, I am doign the research about japanese language but
encounter soem problem.
Suki desu = Suki des / ski des?
Can i skip the "u " for the desu and keep the "u" for the Suki
or i need to remove both "u?
And how does it translate into engligh and chinese?
I like it equal to "Suki Des?
I did a lot of research but show me different thing. any
japanese people can help me in this topic.
Thank you very much
If you can email me and i am very appreciate or you can reply
here?
i reply here instead of your pm so that all can view and
discuss
i m not japanese, i m chinese who learnt japanese
We have to handle 2 issues which you brought up above
separately
The first issue
is written "u" in standard
Japanese is to be pronounced as "ɯ" as in the International Phonetic
Alphabet, and when it falls in the last syllable, it is pronounced
very lightly but still audible
The second
issue relates to the "Devocalization Rule" of the Japanese
language, which is as follows:
whenever vowels "u" or
"i" falls in between 2
unvoiced consonants, "u"
and "i" loses it's voiced
quality and behaves like the symbol "ɯ" in the International Phonetic
Alphabet and it is pronounced very lightly in Japanese
unvoiced consonants in
Japanese = k, s, sh, t, ts,
h, f, p
voiced consonants in Japanese
= m, n, r, y, w, g, z, j, d, b
therefore すきです (meaning "I like it" or "我喜欢") is transcribed
into Rōmaji as Su-ki-de-su,
which effectively is pronounced as Sɯkidesɯ, according to the first issue, the
final "ɯ" (written as
"u") is pronounced
lightly, and going by the explanation given to the second issue, there are 2
unvoiced consonants surrounding the "ɯ" (written as "u"), this "ɯ" (written as "u") will lose it's original voiced
quality and becomes unvoiced, therefore most people can render it
is Skides, but always
remember, the length of each syllable is retained,
therefore Skides will still be pronounced
according to 4 syllable lengths (mora), we should pronounce it
as S-ki-de-s.
This is the one and only explanation.
Please feel free to reply to query.