Pronunciation
As the lessons on this site will all contain
Vowels
For each vowel, I’ll give an example of the same sound in English, and an example of a Japanese word to practise saying with it.
a as in father (Japanese example: kara)
i as in pin (Japanese example: ima)
u as in June (Japanese example: furo)
e as in red (Japanese example: demo)
o as in lot (Japanese example: onsen)
Japanese has long and short vowels. A vowel with a line over it is a long vowel, so you hold it twice as long as you would a normal vowel. This is important as some words will be very similar and the vowel length can change the meaning of the word, for example suki which means ‘to like’ and sukī which means ’ski’.
Silent Vowels
Some vowels aren’t sounded in certain instances. Most commonly the vowel u at the end of verbs, so -desu sounds like des, and -masu sounds like mas. Another common instance of this is when a vowel is between the letters k and s.
Consonants
Only a few consonants sound different from how they sound in English. Only this small handful are ones that have slight variations.
ch as in child, not like character (Japanese example: chotto)
f as in fun (Japanese example: furo)
g as in go, not like gym (Japanese example: gaijin)
j as in jam (Japanese example: jisho)
y as in yes (Japanese example: yuki)
Double Consonants
You’ll occasionally come across words with two of the same consonant next to each other (eg. matte which means ‘wait’). When saying these words, leave a slight pause between the consonants, so matte sounds like mat-te.