Yet another seemingly unvoiced voiced sound?


In [a recent Japanese movie](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09MTY8VG5/), the
leading actor is acting as _Uncle Vanya_ on a stage, saying 「おまえはぼくの人生を踏みに
**じ** った」, in which the 「 **じ** 」sounds to me very similar to 「し」.

I wonder how this sounds to a native speaker and what's happening here:

[audio clip](https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmmX3qt7xV9ci6YeYEqLwLaoM1FvhA?e=xRKHlL)

【Edit】

Recently I heard two more cases, where the 「 **じ** 」 in 「人生」 sounds to me very
similar to 「し」. I wonder if all the three cases can be uniformly explained:

[case 1](https://youtu.be/zRb0Z-fqpCA?t=20), [case
2](https://youtu.be/4QMQpXJxAF0?t=186)




Your ears are picking up on a difference, but strictly speaking it is less
about the degree of voicing and more about the degree of sibilance.

I found another sample of a more run-of-the-mill ふみにじった and have created a
audio file comparing it with your sample:

[Comparison Audio](https://vocaroo.com/1l6AWJaq9s7H)

Using this audio, I generated a spectrogram with Audacity and manually labeled
it here:

[![Spectrogram comparing two samples showing that the questioner's sample has
more sibilance on the
し](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FucrM.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FucrM.png)

From this we can see that your sample is indeed different, in that it has much
louder **sibilance** : the higher frequencies normally associated with し,
generated by air moving quickly between a tight passage between your tongue
and roof of your mouth.

But, it has nearly equivalent amounts of **voicing** : the lower frequencies
generated from your vocal chords vibrating.

(One note is that the voicing in yours does seem to end a tiny bit earlier in
preparation for the っ, which also likely contributes to what you are hearing.)

Either way, the presence of voicing throughout the majority of the consonant
is enough for it to sound like じ as opposed to し to a native speaker in this
context.




I'm a native Japanese speaker, and it sounds like じ to me. It does sound
slightly "weaker" or "less explosive" than the first じ (in 人生) if I listen to
them carefully, but the second じ (in 踏みにじった) is voiced enough.

If you heard a clear difference, it may be because じ is pronounced differently
depending on its position in a word (i.e.,
[allophone](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/16272/5010)). じ is typically
pronounced as [d͡ʑi] at the beginning of a word, and [ʑi] in the middle of a
word. As a native Japanese speaker, [d͡ʑi] and [ʑi] sound almost identical to
me, but these sound clearly different from unvoiced し ([ɕi]).

Related (the last one is your question):

  * [How to hear the difference between て and で, た and だ, か and が, etc.?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/15776/5010)
  * [Pronunciations of と/ど, た/だ, ち/じ](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/68294/5010)
  * ["z" sound, which to choose?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/68584/5010)
  * [When spoken casually, how different do 「た」 and 「だ」 in 「頂きます」 sound to native speakers?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/28487/5010)

