Japanese syllable structure is closely link to mora.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)

But non-Japanese speakers have unusually difficult time to understand Japanese syllable structure.

It's pretty similar to Te Reo Maori, so the pronounciation is pretty straightforward. The characters on the other hand tie me up in knots lol.
:D

The "w" prounciation in Japanese is unrounded.

Ergo it's only a compressed velar approximate ("w" like pronouciation without any interference of your lips; sort of like a slight panting sound when you are exhausted).

eh.... in my middle school years...
i kinda taught myself japanese by reading through a japanese textbook that i got from some one and looking through dictionaries x.x''

when i finally got a job at a japanese owned/run restaurant in my senior year of high school...
i was told that i pronounced everything very much like a native japanese would...
and that my only problem was.. eh... how do you call it... >.<''
like... the difference in hana (nose) and hana (flower)
>.>''
really lost at the proper word... x.x'''
but ..... yeah, that's the only thing that makes me sound non-native when i speak in japanese (that and my lack of proper grammar and limited repertoire of verbs... )

hope i made sense x.x'''

Well if youve met some Japanese speaking english than you will know how most gaijin will sound speaking japanese. Meaning that even if your pronounciation is not to good, if they try hard enough they will understand you.
You should raise your voice at the end of a question (raise at the "ka").

I also think its good to use a recording to practice you speaking because otherwise you might learn something wrong and than its hard to correct later. Actually hearing alot of Japanese, as in subtiteled animes will help you. This might sound weird, but you get used to the language and after a while you get around even pronouncing words you didnt hear before.

And after all, like stated above, Japanese is pretty straightforward, so if someone doesnt understand you, you can pronounce it syllable by syllable. Korean or Chinese are much more difficult because they are more tonal languages.

I would say that 99% of the time, it`s obvious when a non-native speaker is speaking Japanese. When there is someone who truly has no accent I am very impressed.

However, accent does not equal unintelligibility. Even with an accent, unless you are completely ignoring any of the rules of pronunciation, most everyone is going to understand you. But, yes, they`re going to know without looking that you`re not Japanese.

As far as I know, I don`t have an accent in Japanese. I can talk to people on the phone and over the intercom, then have them do a double take when we meet face to face... Occasionally even as far as asking in poor English for me to call the Japanese person they were just speaking to. (Happens quite a lot with utilities, deliveries, etc.) People tell me that I sound perfectly normal, but I consider direct proof with phone and intercom a lot more trustworthy. :)

I think a lot of it has to do with your age when you acquire the language more than actual study method or language skill. Obviously, that won`t HURT, but there are very skilled non-native Japanese speakers who have been in Japan a very very long time and still have a strong accent.

Personally, I would be most concerned about learning the basic rules of pronunciation and trying to imitate as closely as possible than worry deeply about accent. Accept it as a given, and if you do acquire a very natural accent consider yourself very lucky.

I was just wondering if a native speaker would be less likely to talk with you if you had a strong foreign accent? I am just learning japanese and do not believe i have an accent but it is highly possible that i could.

Chances are - you do have a strong accent. :)
I would say that it might not have a strong effect on their willingness to talk to you... But it will most likely have an effect on the level of conversation and what they will discuss with you. Even if your Japanese is very good, if you have a strong accent they will likely judge your level as below what it really is. In what I`ve observed, they cut down the difficulty level and speak in the sort of way you would talk with a gradeschooler...
And, well, to be honest this seems to be what happens to most everyone with a strong accent no matter what country they`re in and what language they are speaking.

But even before any of that, unless you`re Asian and look very Japanese, you`re already going to have people figuring you don`t speak Japanese and wary of starting a conversation.

I am one who, too, has been blessed with a pretty accent-free Japanese. I don't know if being raised on the generic-American accent West Coast had anything to do with it, but I am sure 1) being taught by native speakers and 2) living in Japan had everything to do with it.

I am not sure that I am accent-free now, as I haven't lived there in a few years, but I was able to fool people on the phone.

On the other hand, it is not often I hear a native Japanese with accent-less English...

I have been told by Japanese that I have only a slight American accent when speaking Japanese (I've been told the same about my Chinese, but my Spanish accent is very gringo). I think you should absolutely work toward removing traces of foreign-ness in your speech patterns.

In my opinion, American-accented Japanese is hideous and sounds awful. I mean, can you imagine being friends with SOMEone WHO talks LIKE this ALL the TIME? Because that's what American-accented Japanese sounds like. Japanese is pitch-based accent, while English is stress-based accent. Americans (I imagine other native Anglophones as well? I didn't know enough over there to notice) use the stress way too much in Japanese, and it hurts to even my ears, and having learned Japanese stateside initially, I'm more used to it.

If you're ever going to do anything business-wise with the language, I'd suggest losing the accent as much as possible. When I lived in Japan, my university actually offered a class on this for foreigners.

I caught the accent pretty quickly even though I'm American. Anime is another good way to get the accent. And those funny batsu games on YouTube.
Anyone who has an iPod touch or iPhone should get this app called Human Japanese. It's pretty good and teaches how to pronounce words very nicely.

Oh man, anime is a terrible way to pick up the accent.

Why is that?

Eh? When I was in Japan, apart from a very few anime characters who self evidently don't speak ordinary Japanese, the accents were already familiar. Sometimes I could even determine a rough area of origin.

Or maybe you're thinking that anime is all Sailor Moon and Naruto?

Josh,

I'm getting the same problem speaking Thai. I'm a big fella now, and have hit puberty long ago (you'll get there soon too, don't worry), so my voice is very deep. Yet Asian men rarely hit puberty before 40 or so, and their balls stay very small, and their voice is very high pitched. Because of this, even when I say perfect Thai, I am still misunderstood, because it is very deep, and Thai is a tonal language, and they've never heard these tones before. I often have to grab my balls and twist them slightly in order to hit the right notes.

The accent thing also comes into it. When I meet people from non white countries, I can always pick what nationality their English teacher was based on how they pronounce words; i.e. Asians also copy western accents when they learn our language.

For some sounds, they just do not exist in English, so you need to do a bit of copying, I think. Try and keep your own accent and depth (that is after you hit puberty) where you can, but you're going to have to copy some things to the T in order to be understood, that is fact.

Have you spoken to many Irish men? Their accent is very different and the sounds are way different; they're often hard to understand. Japan has different accents for different regions, but they are all fairly similar, as far as I know. At least, the difference between Irish and Aussie which is so vast does not exist in Japan. Point being, if you came into Japan speaking perfect Japanese, yet with an Aussie accent, the difference to them is going to be about the same as you trying to understand an Irish man; almost a no-hoper...

@marichan, girigiri

I lived in Japan and saw plenty of anime on TV while I casually flipped by it to watch the news. Please don't accuse me of being provincial and being only aware of Naruto (of which I've only seen 10 minutes my entire life, in a university classroom while I lived there) and Sailor Moon (which I watched over a decade ago).

My life, however, has been rich with experience of those who learned Japanese by watching anime. One example is a guy who would randomly quote stuff from Ranma like 冗談じゃないわよ when people were messing with him.

Finally, I can't really recall any anime I've seen that had nothing but characters who talked like normal Japanese. Under my belt are such seminal works as Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, Rurouni Kenshin, Love Hina, and many films. There's always some overexaggerated person in the show.

I think that you`re confusing grammar, vocabulary, and usage with accent. They`re not the same. Accent is inflection, intonation and pronunciation. As long as it is a native speaker, even if they were just spouting random words totally out of context they will be speaking with a native accent. It`s not what they`re saying, it`s the way they say it. If I were to ask you to read the most over the top sentence you would still read it with your native accent.
Any exposure to a native speaker of Japanese - whether it be in a classroom or just watching the most exaggerated character in an anime - will help with picking up a more native-like accent.

In other words, anime isn`t good for learning Japanese but there is nothing wrong with using it as a listening source - Just don`t try to imitate the accent of "foreign" characters. And remember to use proper sources for actual study.

Nyororin, you raise a very good point. I erred.

He would say 冗談じゃないわよ? I guess I can see why people were messing with him.

lol I'd rather leave him alone than mess with him. Couldn't stand who's probably a hairy man saying 冗談じゃないわよ to me.
______________

Hey Josh the OP, here's your fellow countryman Chad Mullane, a professional stand-up comedian in Japan. He speaks very good Osaka dialect.

Yes, he. It was common at my American university to have, for the first two semesters, classmates who would randomly quote anime to show off their skillz-with-a-z. Any anime, regardless of rationality.

Those people tended to fail out or switch to Spanish by the time third semester rolled around.

And Nago, re: that Chad Mullane guy, man his Osakaben is pretty good. He makes for an entertaining ボケ! Where did he get that fluency?

Living in Kansai it is hard not to pick it up, in some ways, because even if you speak normal Japanese to Kansai people, in informal situations they will always answer you in Kansai-ben. For better or worse that is the accent I picked up after living there for three years (accent, not necessarily dialect) but do use Kansai-ben with close friends from Kansai. I have met people that think it is weird for a gaijin to use Kansai-ben, and I can understand that, which is why I try not to in mixed company, though sometimes after some social lubrication it rears its head.

I was just about to write that I have never heard a foreigner speak Japanese without an accent that (even I) can pick up on, but then I watched that Scottish comedian's video. He was amazing.

I don't hear myself speaking with an accent, and when I listen to other foreigners speak Japanese I cringe at their poor pronounciation. I do however, realise that I also have a terrible accent.

Only the Japanese people close to you will keep it real with you. I'm told by all my students that my Japanese is really good, and that I barely have an accent, but they are just being polite. When I ask my girlfriend, she tells it straight. 'You're pretty bad' is what I get.

So I guess my point is, don't tell people you speak without an accent, because no one likes a boaster.

@andylaurel

You've brought up a good point. Japan is a country where a foreigner gets a rockstar treatment even for knowing 3 words of its language. We would rarely tell foreigners that they have a bad accent, except maybe as a joke at a drinking party.

The U.S. isn't like that (if that's where you're from). I write essays, poems, research papers in English. I've delivered speeches impromptu at social gatherings in America. But I've never received a rockstar treatment for doing those things over there. ;)

The difference being that people in the US expect everyone to speak flawless English before coming here to even visit =/