15625
Often, I can't hear ん in words. Most recently I've seen this in 攻殻機動隊.

Examples:

  * もう少し詳しい検査をしてみないと何とも言えませんが、おそらく外的な要因は見つかりそうもありません... 要因 sounds like ようい

  * しくじれば、Spring-8の4倍の税金をかけた橋を… Sounds like ぜいき

  * 何か途中から犯人のメッセージが一人称から三人称にすり替わってしまったような感じで I hear はんにん just fine, but then I hear いちにいしょう and さんにいしょう

  * 総監暗殺予告の件で任意同行してもらうぜ！ 任意 sounds like にいい to me

The latter example I also heard in the drama お天気お姉さん(in episode 9).

  * ①任意です｡②任意というには無理がありすぎる！ This is probably the single best example of it. I don't hear anything like someone intentionally trying to produce a sound(edit:That is, a sound between に and い in にんい). 

So is this a silent letter? Is it a quirk that Japanese people are conscious
of? Is it an accent? What allophone is this? Anything else I should know about
it?

Thanks for the help!
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-25T17:59:34.007
15589
2014-04-29T15:25:59.903
2014-04-26T01:10:42.677
4481
4481
question
pronunciation phonology
Does Japanese have a silent ん?
No, there is no silent ん. But the "length" of ん can be very short, because ん
sounds a lot like single consonant 'N' (or 'M') without a vowel. Other
Japanese letters have a vowel, like 'かKA', 'しSI', 'ずZU', 'のNO'.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-25T18:19:46.687
15590
2014-04-25T18:19:46.687
5228
15589
answer
There is no silent ん. As senshin noted, ん + vowel might not _sound_ like the ん
is there, but it really is. Another good example is 範囲 _han'i_. It's a softer
sound than the /ng/ in the middle of _singing_ , but don't let that fool you.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-26T00:30:01.677
15598
2014-04-26T00:30:01.677
5229
15589
answer
**General comment**

If you are a learner then you are still training your ears to pick up sounds
not in your own language. I was told one of the sounds most commonly misheard
by foreign ears is the "t" in 自転車 which most of us hear as "d". (According to
a comment & link below, many people do say "d" but either way, even as I type
自転車 now I subconsciously type a "d" and only realise when the wrong kanji come
up.)

Given that none of the other posts agree with you, it sounds like these
people, like me, can hear the ん but that is not to say your ears are playing
tricks on you:

**ん followed by "vowels" and "near-vowels"**

When ん is followed by a vowel or near-vowel type of sound, which I think
applies in all your examples, it is also one the more difficult sounds to say
as well as hear, and the two activities are very closely related. I still
struggle to pronounce 任意 passably. Another difficult word is 禁煙. After a while
I worked out that there was "y"-type of sound in many of these words and by
inserting a small "y", I found Japanese were more likely to recognise them in
my speech.

Likewise, in the case of 税金を the を is generally accepted as "wo" in roman
letters and the combination of the "n" and the "w" is giving rise to a
different sound from what you expect to hear.

The linguists and native speakers on this site may have a different view about
this "y" and can explain the origins better than me. I think its roots go back
to the "yi" and "ye" sounds no longer recognised in standard 平仮名. But, given
that the English speaking world calls the currency "Yen", and than is pretty
close to what I hear when people say ３千円 or一万円, I thinks its a good "working
rule".

**Other nuances**

There maybe other differences or subtle nuances as to how ん is pronounced for
different words not captured by 平仮名. The "m" sound in 日本橋 comes to mind
although that is not so subtle. It also worth mentioning that some say the ん
sound can be closer to the "n" in "stung" rather than in "stun".

Pitch is another very obvious example of something not captured in the writing
but if the language came before the writing system then it must be inevitable
that that system has pragmatic approximations.

I suppose these approximations could also have a strong influence on how the
language is spoken but that is outside scope of your question and the real
linguists could tell us more.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-26T00:42:29.510
15599
2014-04-29T15:25:59.903
2014-04-29T15:25:59.903
1556
1556
15589
answer
ん has different pronunciations(allophones) depending on surrounding context.

  * [m] before /p/, /b/ and /m/
  * [n] before /d/, /t/, and /n/
  * [ŋ] (What some might know as "ng") before [k] and [ɡ].
  * [ɴ] at the end of prosodic units. This is close to [ŋ] but pronounced further down in the throat.
  * Before vowels, /j/,/w/,/r/,/s/,/z/ and /h/, it is pronounced as a nasalized version of the preceding vowel.

This varies slightly based on speaker and register, but works as a general
guideline. According to this, your example 税金を /ze:kiɴo/ would be pronounced

> [~iĩo]

However, the nasality of the nasal vowels often tends to spread to the
surrounding vowels by a phenomenon called "nasal assimilation". This causes
the pronunciation to become

> [~ĩ:õ]

Likewise, はんい would become

> [hã:ĩ]

You mention in a comment that you don't hear anything nasal in it, but that
might be because you're not used to listening for nasal vowels.

Finally, just to illustrate that nasal assimilation isn't a concept as alien
as you might expect, it's quite common in English too. For example, the word
"can't" is commonly pronounced [kã:t].
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-28T00:50:46.483
15625
2014-04-28T00:56:40.583
2014-04-28T00:56:40.583
1073
1073
15589
answer