日本語発音ラボ
Japanese Pronunciation Laboratory

This site deals with standard Japanese. Standard Japanese is based on the Tokyo dialect; therefore, this site deals with the Tokyo accent. For the same reason, vowel devoicing, a characteristic of standard Japanese, is also included in the menu.

The purpose of this site is to help learners be aware of the characteristics of Japanese pronunciation and provide opportunities to practice and improve their Japanese pronunciation. That is why this site contains a lot of listening practice.

The Explanation and Practice sections are for self-practice. If you are concerned about learners' listening and pronunciation problems but do not have time to handle them in class, please introduce this site to the learners.

The Assignment section is for checking the effects on practice. The number of assignments depends on items: some items contain no assignments. Please adjust the number of tasks to assign to each lesson. You could give only Assignment 1 or Assignment 2 or not assign any task at all, for instance. This site does not provide the correct answers for the section. Teachers listen to the learner's pronunciation submitted and judge whether it is good enough.

It does not presuppose that teachers explain all items on this site. However, teachers' instruction will help learners understand the content easily. Please download the "5-Minute Kit" from the page For Teachers. The 5-Minute Kit is a PowerPoint slide created for teachers with built-in audio. Teachers can use it for instruction in class. Some 5-Minute Kits can take more than 5 minutes to finish. A password is required to access and download it. Please register for 新規登録, a new member at Log-in in the top right corner above. After the registration, an email with a password will be sent to you automatically. Once you have the password, you can access any page that requires a password.