Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
I am having trouble visualizing an S sound in there...
Chances are, one of them (host mother) was stricter on the pronunciation than the other. People will excuse you for pronunciation mistakes if it is "close enough to be understood". This is particularly true if your Japanese isn`t that good.
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Not a few Tokyoites make little distinction between ひ and し. I hear しと（人）、しどい（酷い＝ひどい） and believe it or not even コーシー（コーヒー） around me.
Quoting from Wiki:
"The Shitamachi dialect (下町言葉 Shitamachi-kotoba), or Edo dialect (江戸弁 Edo-ben), a fast-fading dialect of old families from the eastern Tokyo area of Shitamachi, is another example of a Tokyo dialect that differs from standard Japanese. This dialect is primarily known for its lack of distinction between some phonemes which are considered wholly distinct in all other Japanese dialects. Most famous is the decreased distinction between hi (ひ) and shi (し), so that hidoi (酷い terrible) becomes shidoi, and shichi (七 seven) becomes hichi. Though it also includes a few distinctive words, today it is largely indistinguishable from the standard speech of Tokyo other than the phonemic difference."