Japanese pronunciation

There aren’t as many sounds in Japanese as there are in English, and they tend to be quite consistent which is also good to know when you start learning.  The sounds are made up from a set of basic syllables and their “alphabet” (Hiragana) is a list of syllables (a syllabary).

Key words (terms that are used in this page)

• Aspirated - a sound that’s blown out with a strong puff of air from the lungs.
• Unvoiced - a plain sound that can be made from shaping the mouth and using a light breath of air.
• Voiced - a harsher version of an unvoiced sound which you need to use your vocal chords for.
• Hiragana - the set of syllables that are used to write out native Japanese words phonetically.
• Katakana - a set of syllables that match the Hiragana in sound, but are more basic and angular in written appearance.  They tend to be mainly used for foreign (loan) words or onomatopoeia (words that sound like the sound they describe), although modern Japanese has seen a trend in Katakana being used for many native and slang words too.
• Particle - a sort of word-suffix that often defines the role of the preceding word in the sentence – like identifying the subject or object of the sentence, or their role relative to one-another.  Here is a link to the wiki description of Japanese Particles.

The basic syllables

• a, i, u, e, o (unvoiced)
• ka, ki, ku, ke, ko (unvoiced)
• ga, gi, gu, ge, go (voiced “K”)
• sa, shi, su, se, so (unvoiced)
• za, ji, zu, ze, zo (voiced “S”)
• ta, chi, tsu, te, to (unvoiced)
• da, ji, zu, de, do (voiced “T”)
• na, ni, nu, ne, no
• ha, hi, fu, he, ho (unvoiced)
• ba, bi, bu, be, bo (voiced “H”)
• pa, pi, pu, pe, po (aspirated “H”)
• ya, yu, yo
• ra, ri, ru, re, ro
• wa, wo
• n/m

The “voiced” sounds are harder versions of the unvoiced sounds.  So a voiced KA (か) becomes GA (が), and a voiced HA (は) becomes BA (ば). PA, PI, PU, PE, PO are slightly different in that they are aspirated (you can’t say them easily without blowing the air out quickly) – the Hiragana are also marked with a little circle (ぱぴぷぺぽ) that reminds me of a smoke circle.

Note: The syllable “wo” is pronounced the same way as the Japanese “O”, but only still exists as a Japanese “particle”.  Another slightly confusing difference is that there is a common particle written as “ha” (meaning something like “with regard to”) but it’s actually pronounced as “wa” (in romaji I actually write this as “watashi wa” (I am) to avoid confusion, but in Japanese hiragana it’s written as “watashi ha”)

Consonant sounds

The rules of pronunciation seem difficult (and they are admittedly hard to get used to), but they are few exceptions.

• K – as in “kite” – strongly aspirated. It can sound like a T when said with force.
• G – as in “good” – is a voiced “K”. Sometimes it can sound like “ng” in the middle of a word (depending on the local accent), which is the sound you get when you put your tongue further back when saying it.
• S – as in “hiss” – strongly aspirated. This is slightly more harsh than the English “ess”, and can be made by pushing your tongue nearer the roof of your mouth.
• Z – as in “gadzooks” – voiced “S”.  There is often a slight “D” at the start of this sound
• T – as in “top” – lightly aspirated.  It can sometimes sound similar to the English K or D (like in the American pronunciation of “butter”).
• D – as in “do” – voiced “T”
• N – there are two forms of this, as it is a sound on its own as well as in a group of syllables.  In a syllable, it’s much like the N in “not”.  On it’s own it’s like a French “n” and is a more nasal sounding, and when it comes just before another syllable that starts with a sound made with the lips closed, then it sounds like an M.
• H – as in “hat”.  This is a harsh H sound and is often made by pushing the tongue further back than with the “S” sound, almost letting the air hiss out.
• F – no real equivalent – lightly aspirated. This sound is only used in “fu” sounds, and is different to the English “F” in that your lips shouldn’t touch your teeth (it’s almost like blowing dust from the palm of your hand).
• B – as in “bottle” – voiced “H” or “F”.
• P – as in “payment” – aspirated “H” or “F”.
• M – as in “mount”
• R – no real equivalent – lightly aspirated.  This is a tough one to describe, so I’ll link you to a youtube video that’s really handy!

• W – as in “wax”

Very occasionally Japanese may use an approximation of a “V”, which is a voiced “U”, although most of the time this will sound more like a “B” or “W” and it’s only really been added to the syllabary fairly recently.

Often you get elongated consonant sounds (like katte, which means “to own”, of animals).  There is only one English equivalent to this that I know of, which is “bookkeeper”, where you hold on to the consonant sound for a beat before releasing it again.

Vowel sounds (in order: A, I, U, E, O)

• A – as in “father”
• I – as in “feet”
• U – I think this sounds like the “ou” from the French “voulez vous”
• E – as in “fair”, but again sounding slightly French.
• O –  as in “box”

One important distinction between Japanese vowels and English vowels (other than the basic sounds), is that when you have two or more vowel sounds together, they are sounded as distinct syllables, rather than merged as in English.  So think in terms of words like “area” than “through”.

Here are a couple of examples:

• “AI” (“ah-ee”) sounds similar to “eye”.
• “AU” (ah-ooh) sounds similar to “ow” in “cow”.
• “AE” (“ah-eh”) – no equivalent.
• “AO” (“ah-oh”) – no equivalent.
• “EI” – (“eh-ih”) – more often than not this just sounds like a longer Japanese “E” sound and the “ih” sound is not often noticeable.
• “OU” – (“o-u”) – more often than not, again, this will sound just like a longer version of the Japanese “O” sound.

… work in progress!