Japanese Pronunciation: Preparatory Lesson

1. Vowels and Syllables

Every Japanese syllable contains one of the five vowels: あ, い, う, え, お. These five vowels can also be used individually as independent syllables.

A consonant can combine with a vowel to form a syllable.

With few exceptions, every Japanese syllable is pronounced with the exact same length: one beat, or mora.

2. Long Vowels: ちょうおん / Chōon

Compared to standard vowels, the length of a long vowel is doubled. For example, あ is one beat, while ああ is two beats.

Whether a vowel is long or short can completely change the meaning of a word.

Long Vowel Notation in Hiragana

Hiragana Exceptions

Long Vowel Notation in Katakana

All long vowels in katakana are written with the dash symbol ー.

3. Syllabic Nasal: はつおん / Hatsuon

The character ん never appears at the beginning of a word. It has a length of one beat. The sound of ん changes depending on the syllable that follows it.

4. Double Consonants: そくおん / Sokuon

The small っ has a length of one beat. It appears before sounds in the か, さ, た, and ば rows. In katakana loanwords, it can also appear before sounds such as ザ and ダ.

5. Contracted Sounds: ようおん / Yōon

Contracted sounds are formed by attaching a small や, ゆ, or よ to characters such as き, ぎ, し, じ, ち, に, ひ, び, ぴ, み, and り. The two characters together form a single one-beat sound.

6. Pronunciation of the Ga-row

When a ga-row consonant is at the beginning of a word, it is pronounced as [g]. Otherwise, it is traditionally pronounced as a nasal [ŋ], like "ng."

Recently, the difference between [g] and [ŋ] has been fading, and there is a tendency to pronounce them all as [g].

7. Devoicing of Vowels

When the vowels [i] and [u] are sandwiched between voiceless consonants, they become devoiced, or whispered.

When a sentence ends in ～です (desu) or ～ます (masu), the vowel [u] in the final す [su] is also devoiced.

8. Pitch Accent

Japanese is a pitch-accent language. This means a word has high-pitched and low-pitched beats. Depending on where the pitch drops, accents are categorized into types.

The first and second beats of a standard accent always differ in pitch. Once the pitch drops, it does not rise again within the same word.

Accent Types

Different pitch accents can result in different meanings.

9. Intonation

There are three types of intonation:

1. Flat
2. Rising
3. Falling

Questions use rising intonation. In Japanese, question sentences can also end with the full stop 。.

Most other sentences are flat. When expressing agreement or disappointment, falling intonation may be used.