I am learning Japanese at a beginner's level. I am wondering how to pronounce
the letter ❛ た❜ because according to the chart it should be pronounce as ta ,
but in listening materials and everyday conversation it is often pronounced as
da ,like the word だ . Is it depends on grammar or it's just a custom ? Could
you please tell me more details about pronunciation? Thank you for consider my
question.
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2018-09-23T00:41:49.710
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2018-09-23T20:12:21.080
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question
grammar pronunciation
How to pronounce ❛ た❜？
It is pronounced as "ta", like in "target" or "tarmac"  
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMktI173n5M>
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2018-09-23T01:25:05.150
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2018-09-23T01:25:05.150
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Since you say you know what だ sounds like, I'll answer your question
indirectly by focusing on the _differences_ between た and だ.

Overall, the difference between た and だ is that だ is "voiced", hence the
accent.

So, what does "voiced" really mean?

"Voiced" means that your throat vibrates. To demonstrate this, try putting
your fingers on the front of your neck, and say "t" and "d". You'll notice the
only difference between the two sounds is that your throat vibrates when you
say "d". When you say "t", the air passes without vibrating your throat.

Hopefully this experiment helps you distinguish between the two!
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2018-09-23T01:29:41.923
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2018-09-23T01:29:41.923
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Your native language (Mandarin? Chinese) is confusing you here.

Mandarin distinguishes two kinds of stop sounds - one where the airflow is
simply stopped and then allowed to resume again, and one where there's a small
burst of noisy air when the closure is released. The first are transcribed in
Pinyin with _b d g_ ; the second with _p t k_. English does something rather
similar to this, in fact.

In contrast, Japanese has a different distinction between its two kinds of
stop sounds. Again, in one, the airflow is just stopped and then allowed to
resume, but in the other, your vocal folds are vibrating during the closure
(just like in Nicolas Guillemot's answer). In this case, the first series is
transcribed as _p t k_ , and the second (voiced) one with _b d g_.

You can put this sort of in a table like this.

```

             noisy release   simple   voiced
    Pinyin        t            d        -
    Japanese      -            t        d
    
```

This is why you're confused about Japanese /t/ - because you're used to
Mandarin transcribed using Pinyin, you're used to seeing that sound written as
_d._ In Japanese, _d_ means something else.

You may struggle for a while to hear the difference between Japanese /t/ and
/d/ because Mandarin doesn't care at all about that difference, and your ear
isn't used to listening for it - it's listening for a different distinction,
which in turn Japanese doesn't care about.
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2018-09-23T20:12:21.080
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