95751
[This amateur video](https://youtu.be/jf-SbSfiXn4) complains about Duolingo
not having perfect Japanese pronunciation, and dates from 2021. The author of
the video goes as far as to recommend that the audio and listening exercises
be disabled altogether. This makes me wonder, to what extend is the
pronunciation "not perfect"?

As I know nearly nothing of Japanese, I don't yet have the ear to compare it
to actual Japanese and decide whether it's good or not. My main concern is
that it could lead me into mispronouncing words.

I'm a native French speaker, and I tried out the Duolingo French course just
to see how accurate the pronunciation was. I was very satisfied by it, and I
don't see why a French speaker would sound weird just because he uses the same
pronunciation as in Duolingo (though we all know the tone of voice and robotic
sentence entries and conclusions are hilariously ridiculous, but that is not
what I'm concerned about.)

In other words, could we say that Duolingo's Japanese pronunciation quality is
at least as good as with French?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-04T21:01:21.403
95692
2022-08-10T09:41:32.293
54160
question
pronunciation learning resources website
Is Duolingo's pronunciation decent or good?
In short: Duolingo's Japanese pronunciation quality is not perfect. Most
Japanese people would sense that it's not a native speaker here and there. Now
that said it's not so bad that one would have misunderstandings. I get the
impression of a very advanced Japanese learner (just not entirely a native
speaker).

Some of the phrases it suggests are unnatural, though only subtly (and in
fairness, most text book do this, too). It also rejects phrases that are
perfectly natural sometimes (but again, many text books have the same
problem).

If you really want to excel in Japanese and speak as naturally as possible,
perhaps it makes sense to avoid it. For casual learning or if you don't mind
hearing/learning subtly unnatural pronunciation/phrasing here and there, I
think it's a fine app.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-10T09:41:32.293
95751
2022-08-10T09:41:32.293
499
95692
answer