No prob, SHADOW-you didn't confuse things. I just lost track of my thought process back there. :P
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
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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I didn't asked my friend to grade my pronunciation, I asked her how she pronounces the word. She told me she says 'O-TO-KO-NO-SHTO (just as I had learned) but my host mom said to pronounce it (and this, also, is her own interpretation) 'O-TO-KO-NO-HiTO', sort of whispering or blowing the 'Hi' part.
I'm not sure if this was misunderstood, but the reason I wrote 'OtokonoSHito' with the emphasis on 'SH' is because I intended it to be read 'SHTO' rather than 'SHEETO'.
That's interesting about the Shitamachi dialect.
I'm kind of going off topic again , but can anyone tell me if the Japanese language is being mutilated as quickly as English? It's incredible, the rate at which English seems to be deteriorating. We've given new meanings to old words and perverted meanings; we've changed nouns to verbs; kids-and probably many adults-can't spell worth crap; we've developed stupid expressions like the one I just used; txting is rampant-and xtrmly irritating...is the Japanese language suffering as badly?