Here's the sentence that I was listening to: Kono shorui ni Yan-san no juusho, shimei, seinengappi nado o kakikonde kudasai. When I was listening to it, it sounded like the word was being pronounced as: kakonde. Obviously, I didn't hear the i or ki. But still is the i silent or am I not just hearing it right?

Secondary questions: 1) why shimei and not namae? 2) what is the konde in kakikonde?



Between voiceless consonants, u and i sounds often become silent. The most notable example is the ending ました or ます in verbs. In the case of kakikonde 書き込んで it would be kak-konde, with very light i sound, not kakonde like you said.

氏名 shimei refers to 氏 and 名, which combine to mean "full name". On the other hand 名前 is often use to indicate the "given name".

More about this on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voicelessness

Sonorants are those sounds, such as vowels and nasals, which are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually allophonically. For example, the Japanese word sukiyaki is pronounced [su̥kijaki]. This may sound like [skijaki] to an English speaker, but the lips can be seen compressing for the [u̥].

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    I usually hear the "silent i" as something like ]... – Earthliŋ Oct 4 '13 at 11:27

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