The k-line becomes きゃ ( kya), きゅ ( kyu), and きょ ( kyo). “き ( Ki)” + “small ゃ ( ya)” becomes “きゃ ( kya).” When “ki” and “small ya” combine, the “i” sound disappears and it changes into the “kya” sound. In such cases, the ya-line sounds are represented by smaller characters of や ( ya), ゆ ( yu), よ ( yo) instead of the regular-sized characters. The three ya-line (や, ゆ, よ ) sounds can be combined with any of the sounds that end in い ( i) (except for “い ” itself from the “a-line”) to create another variation of sounds. The number of sounds in Japanese pronunciation is not as many as those of English, so learning Japanese pronunciation is not so difficult if you know English. When you add “ handakuten 半濁点” or a small circle to the upper right of each of the h-line characters, the sound of “h” changes into the “p” sound:
Similarly, the lines of “s,” “t,” and “h” change into “z,” “d,” and “b” with dakuten as shown below. When you look at the vertical “k” line in the Hiragana Chart above, there are “か ( Ka), き ( Ki), く( Ku), け ( Ke), こ ( Ko).” When adding “ dakuten濁点” or two small lines to the upper right of each of the ka-line characters, the hard “k” sound changes into a softer “g” sound: These characters are considered to be variations of the basic Hiragana, thus they don’t appear in the main syllabary. These are related to some of the basic Hiragana sounds. All are based on forty-six basic Hiragana. However, there are fifty-eight other variations of sounds listed below. 2- How Many *Sounds* are there in Japanese?Īs mentioned above, the basic sounds are represented by forty-six Hiragana characters. When you can properly pronounce each Japanese words, your conversation skill will greatly improve. The first step to learn Japanese is to master Hiragana. So once you master Hiragana, you’ll be able to pronounce all the Japanese words perfectly! On the contrary, the sound and pronunciation of Hiragana is the same, no matter what order the characters are in, or what combination of characters are in a word. “I” itself is pronounced /aɪ/, but when it’s used in words such as “alive” and “ink,” the pronunciation of “i” changes. Take the English alphabet “i,” for example. The characters represent the exact same sounds (please see the chart above) and all the Japanese sounds can be expressed by a single hiragana, or a combination of two hiragana letters.Īll Hiragana end with a vowel ( a, e, i, o, u).In this respect, Japanese pronunciation is far simpler than English pronunciation. Unlike in the English alphabet, eachHiragana character represents one mora, the shortest syllable, and each character is read for the same length of time and spoken with the same strength. Hiragana consists of 46 basic characters which can represent all of the sounds in spoken Japanese, with a few variations which are closely related to some basic Hiragana and its sounds. Japanese children and foreign Japanese learners start learning Japanese from here in order to read and write Japanese. Hiragana is the most basic Japanese writing system, the core Japanese alphabet. Later, we’ll also go more into comparing Japanese pronunciation to English. For learning Japanese pronunciation, Hiragana is the most important and thus we focus on Hiragana here.
Kanji is Chinese characters and both Hiragana and Katakana are a syllabic grapheme. The Japanese writing system is a combination of three different characters: Hiragana (ひらがな), Katakana (カタカナ), and Kanji (漢字). 1- What is the Japanese Language Writing System? Once you master Hiragana / Katakana, you can pronounce anything in Japanese, as they’re the cornerstone of pronunciation in the Japanese language. It’s essential to know the Japanese writing systemin order to learn Japanese pronunciation efficiently and effectively. Ready to pronounce Japanese words like a native? Let’s get started! Here’s our detailed guide to Japanese pronunciation to help you learn efficiently with JapanesePod101! Consider this our Japanese pronunciation key. You can master Japanese pronunciation much faster than you think once you know the rules and tips. As such, don’t be afraid to learn Japanese pronunciation. Further, each syllable in Japanese has the same length and strength, as opposed to English where you have to be careful about which syllables to stress and speak strongly. Learning Japanese pronunciation isn’t as difficult as learning Japanese grammar or its writing system, and if you can speak clearly, Japanese people will understand you even if your grammar and vocabulary aren’t perfect.Ĭompared to English, Japanese pronunciation is easier as it has less vowels and consonants than English does. When learning a new language, pronouncing words correctly is one of the most important things, especially for practical communication.