samples of English with Japanese accent - where?

neb   Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 pm GMT
Hi :)

I'm a non-native speaker of English from central Europe. In about three weeks I have a job interview with people from Japan, it's going to be in English.

I've read something about Japanese pronunciation of English, but I'd like to get used to the accent before the interview.

Do you know any webpages where I can find samples of English spoken with Japanese accent? (There was a discussion on this forum, a Japanese speaker of English posted his samples, but the links don't work now :-/ )

Thanks in advance :)
furrykef   Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:14 pm GMT
This website has accents from all over the world: http://accent.gmu.edu/

They have two Japanese speakers:
http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=221
http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=227

However, Japanese phonology is very different from English, so there is a lot of room for variation... if you picture a sliding scale from "Japanese accent" to "native English accent", there are so many places on the scale that a given speaker could be!

- Kef
Paul   Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:33 pm GMT
Totally agree with Kef.

The funny part will be that you found the Japanese people speak to you in another strange language, but actually it was English. So-called Jananese English.
Sho   Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:20 am GMT
I can post some samples of my accent:) (I'm Japanese, by the way.) Probacly one with a thick Japanese accent and one with my natural accent...

Generally merging phonemes /r/ and /l/, /b/ and /v/, and /T/ and /s/ are the ones you often notice in manx Japanese people's accent.

Some Japanese tend to insert a vowel where it doesn't belong.
Native Korean   Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:29 pm GMT
http://web.ku.edu/idea/asia/japan/japan.htm
http://web.ku.edu/idea/index2.html

You can listen to all kinds of accents from all over the world including Japanese accent.
From my personal experience, Japanese were not very good at speaking English. My Japanese skill is lower-intermediate, but I had to use my rusty Japanese and bodylanguage when I was travelling in Japan.
neb   Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:06 pm GMT
Thanks everyone :)

I seem to have a problem with http://accent.gmu.edu/ ; I guess my operating system isn't compatible with Quicktime.

But I tried http://web.ku.edu/idea/index2.html and there is one girl whose accent is a bit harder to understand.

I hope I'll be able to understand the people I'm going to meet; maybe they won't speak with a heavy Japanese accent, but in case they will, I'd like to be prepared because my listening skills... well, they could be better.

Sho, if it's really not a problem to post your sample, I'd be grateful.