Correct pronunciation of "sukiyaki"?


I've heard it both as "soo-kee-ya-kee" and "skee-ya-kee". Which is correct?

Some more background:

A native speaker once told me that the correct pronunciation is "skee-ya-kee",
and I subsequently learned that sometimes people shorten vowels. (Another
example would be "a-sak-sa" for "Asakusa".) Yet at Japanese restaurants I've
ordered "skee-ya-kee" only to have the servers (native speakers) repronounce
it as "soo-kee-ya-kee". Is it purely a preference? Basically I'd like to use
the correct pronunciation when ordering sukiyaki.




If you do not intend to speak like a native speaker and you just want to make
yourself understood, say like "soo-kee-yah-kee".

I don't know how often native speakers drop vowels between characters in hasty
daily speech (since I'm also a native speaker myself who did not use IPA for
learning Japanese), but when they speak slowly and clearly, it's certainly
"soo-kee-yah-kee" without dropping any vowels. The 4 sounds each correspond to
the four hiragana letters of this word (す-き-や-き). The server perhaps said this
word slowly for you.

And note that you can never get the "correct" pronunciation if you are
thinking in English alphabet like this. English and Japanese are two different
languages and have different sound systems (read
[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/9333/5010) for an example). In
this sense, neither is "correct"; soo-kee-yah-kee is just a safer
approximation of the Japanese word すき焼き.




The closest possible notation of すきやき and あさくさ within English sounds I think
would be "sss-kee-yah-kee" and "ah-sah-khh-sah" (with right accentuation, of
course).

Japanese phonology is build upon a basic principle of "[isochrony of
morae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrony#Mora_timing)", that is each
unit must be pronounced in the same duration. As you've observed, the vowel is
devoiced in this condition, or becomes effectively inaudible, but it doesn't
reduce the length of the syllable. If you naively pronounce "skee", they're
likely to hear the vowel relatively longer, that's why _ski_ is rendered スキー
"sss-kee-ee". The servers might have repronounced it (in English
pronunciation, perhaps?) to make sure that you ordered the right menu.

Another possibility is that they come from Western Japan area where the vowel
U is more rounded and doesn't get devoiced, remaining similar to English "oo".

