Japanese Pronunciation



Japanese pronunciation, Reading in Japanese for beginners and Japanese reading practice and answers for How to read Japanese for beginners, Japanese alphabets.


Pronunciation in Japanese 

Japanese pronunciation is not as hard as English pronounciation. In English, different letters may be pronounced differently depending on the word in which they are used but Japanese letters are always pronounced the same.

Japanese language has only 5 sounds i.e. 

  1. あ which is read as 'aa' as in 'Argon', 'Art'.
  2. い which is read as 'i' as in 'India', 'Ink', 'Igloo'.
  3. う which is read as 'oo' as in 'Book', 'Cook', 'Tool', 'Spoon'.
  4. え which is read as 'e' as in 'Elephant', 'Engineer'.
  5. お which is read as 'o' as in 'Omega', 'Opera'. 

Based on these 5 sounds there are other characters such as か which is read as 'ka', き which is read as 'ki' as in 'Kindle', く which is read as 'ku', け which is read as 'ke', こ which is read as 'ko'. And there are other characters such as 'Ga', 'Gi', 'Gu', 'Ge', 'Go' and so on. See the Hiragana chart for other characters.


So you take a consonant from English alphabet and you add any one of the above mention basic sounds and you get a new Hiragana character.


Double Vowels

There are many words in Japanese with double vowels. For example-

  • 新しい ( reading: あたらしい, ATaRaShii, meaning: New ) 
  • かわいい ( reading: KaWaii, meaning: Cute )
  • 大きい ( reading: おおきい/ OOKii, meaning: Big )
  • 楽しい ( reading: たのしい/ TaNoShii, meaning: Funny/ Interesting )
  • いい ( reading: ii, meaning: Good/ Nice )
  • いいえ ( reading: iiE , meaning: No )

These double vowels are not ignored they are pronounced separately, lengthening the sound.

Take a look at these two words
かわいい ( reading: kawaii, meaning: cute) | 怖い ( reading: こわい/ kowai, meaning: scary ). While talking to someone these two words sound same to non Japanese speakers. 

Suppose you are complementing a child as kawai, you meant to say cute but its sounds like kowai and the mother starts staring at you. You would not like that to happen. So if you spoke another 'i' after the 'kawai' and make it sound like 'kawai-i', then it would sound correct.

Take another case: いいえ ( reading: iiE , meaning: No ) and 家 ( reading: いえ/ iE , meaning: House ). Here you can not make a mistake in pronouncing a double vowel. If you want to say 'No' in Japanese you can not say 'iE', you will have to say 'iiE' otherwise it will mean 'House' instead of 'No'.


For our brain, double vowels do not sound significant, but Japanese speakers are able to distinguish between single vowels and double vowels.


Double Consonants

Some Japanese words have double consonants. For example-
  • 待って ( reading: まって/ MaTTe | meaning: Wait ( advice/ order/ request ) )
  • こっち ( reading: Kochchi | meaning: This one )
  • どっち ( reading: DoChchi | meaning: Which one )
  • あっまり ( reading: AMMaRi | meaning: Not often )
  •  疾風伝 ( reading: しっぴでん/ ShiPPuDeN | meaning: Hurricane )
  • 北海道 ( reading: ほっかいどう/ HoKKaiDoU | meaning: Hokkaido ( a place in Japan) )
  • ロック ( reading: RoKKu | meaning: Rock ( music ) )
  • 学校 ( reading: がっこう/ GaKKoU | meaning: School )


The Hiragana character つ ( Tsu ) when it is written as っ ( small Tsu or Sokuon | comparison: っつ ) before another character, the consonant part of that character is is pronounced two times. 


For example-  がっこう ( which means school ) will be read as GaKKoU ( I have decreased the size of the consonant represented by っ ( i.e, small tsu )), the consonant part 'k' of the Hiragana character 'こ' ( ko ) is read twice, so  がっこ will be read as GaKKo. Just like the first 't' in 'Little', the first 'p' in 'Supper' etc. 


Some special pronunciations

There are some special pronunciations of some words, like 好き (read as すき or 'ski') it means like (its an adjective), 好き is written in Hiragana as すき in which 'す' is read as 'su' and 'き' is read as 'ki', but 好き is read as 'ski' not 'suki', the 'u' in 'su' is omitted while reading. 


The case is same for 'す' in 'です' (means 'be' i.e. is, am, are etc.), 'です' is also read 'Des' not 'Desu'. Other examples are ます which is read as MaS not MaSu and します which is read as ShiMaS not ShiMaSu.


The character ん

Some Hiragana characters are simply just a vowel (Click to check). Others are a consonant with a vowel (Click to check). But ん is the only character which only a consonant without a vowel (if compared to English letters). It maybe represented as 'N' or 'M' in Romaji (or English letters), depending on the word in which it occurs.


ん is pronounced as 'n' as in 'Sunday', 'Monday', 'Bun' etc. and as 'm' as in 'Complete', 'Stumble', 'Bread crumb' etc. Now lets take a look at some words which use ん.


  • 女 (reading: おんな/ ONNa | meaning: Woman)
  • せんぱい (reading: SeMPaI meaning: Senior)
  •  三百 (reading: さんびゃく/ SaMByaKu| meaning: Three Hundred)
  • 元気 (reading: げんき/ GeNKi| meaning: Healthy/ Well)
  • みんな (reading: MiNNa| meaning: Everyone)
  • 電話 (reading: でんわ/ DeNWa| meaning: Phone)
  • こんばんわ (reading: KoMBaNWa| meaning: Good Evening)

Mostly ん is read as 'n' as we can see in おんな| ONNa, でんわ| DeNWa, げんき| GeNKi etc. But in some cases it is read as 'm' as we can see in せんぱい| SeMPaI, SaMByaKu, KoMBanWa etc.


You may have noticed here that ん is read as 'm' when comes before a hiragana character having 'p' or 'b'. In other cases it is read as 'n'. This is observed in words of other languages too like Bamboo, Samba, Mango, Candy etc.


Why this happens? The reason is because our vocal system is designed this way. Try saying Mamgo, Camdy, Banboo and then say their correct versions. You would notice that it is easier to say 'm' before a 'p' or 'b' instead of 'n'.