I've heard many people pronounce す, つ, く, and る as if く and る rhyme, す and つ
rhyme, but not any other pair. It seems as if す is sometimes pronounced [sɨ]
and く is pronounced [ku]. This doesn't seem to make sense though, since in
many song lyrics they do rhyme and are used for rhyming effect.

Is this related to the fact that す and つ are often devoiced and the devoiced
/u/ sounds like [ɨ]? Or is this related to the fact that my Chinese-accustomed
ears mislead me when the う line is devoiced? This is especially since it seems
like people who pronounce the vowels of す and く the farthest are speakers with
a Chinese accent, like the singer Alan Dawa Dolma. I swear though that for
some speakers of Japanese I hear, す does not seem to rhyme with く.
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2013-04-30T15:04:50.007
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2015-04-29T14:21:48.333
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question
pronunciation kana
Does all kana in the う line rhyme?
While I hope the time has led the questioner to the correct understanding of
this problem, I find it a rather interesting question being asked.

It's true that a precise phonetic analysis reveals differences between
realizations of the vowel //u// by its environments, or generally, that a
vowel's sound quality slightly differs according to its preceding (succeeding)
consonants in most languages of the world. But as a whole, differences inside
a vowel don't grow as large as those between different vowels in a specific
language or dialect.

Based on what as far as I can get from the question's way of thinking, and if
I'm guessing correctly that mentioned "Chinese" is Standard Chinese, it's
highly probable that OP was just misled.

First, there's no approximate Standard Chinese counterpart of Standard
Japanese //u//. It's more backward than _ü_ in SC _lü_ , more fronted than _u_
in SC _lu_ , and more rounded than _i_ in SC _si_ (which is a wicked "vowel"
that almost is a consonant in phonetic perspective, but ironically being
closer to what SJ //u// sounds especially when devoiced).

Second, not all consonants adopt aforementioned vowels in SC. The _ü_ only
appears after _n, l, j, q, x_ , and the _-i_ after _z, c, s_. Only _u_ gets
along with any consonant.

Therefore, if you have Chinese ear (it's sort of mindset rather than
hearing...) and hear SJ //su//, you can translate it to closest SC _si_ , but
when you hear SJ //ku//, you can't make you believe it's _ki_ (sorry for
abusing pinyin) or _kü_ because they're not in your phonological inventory, as
the result you think it must be _ku_.

Generally speaking, there's little chance that a sound of a foreign language
hit the "sweet spot" of any sound you already know. Whatever it is recognized
to you, I bet it must be more or less "off" from decent sound in your native
tongue. Knowing to accept those "waffling" sound as is would be the first step
to learn foreign pronunciation.
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answer