The concept of long and short vowel sounds is an important concept to understand when learning Japanese pronunciation. Vowels can be lengthened, and there is a very distinct difference between long and short vowels. Note that in this lesson, a macron (small horizontal line over a vowel) denotes a long vowel that we hold for twice as long as a regular vowel. double vowels and vowel pairs Sounds like... ああ aa あー ahh いい ii いー ee うう uu うー  ooh ええ ee えい ei えー ehh おお oo おう ou おー ohh In many cases, whether the vowel is long or short will determine the meaning of the word. Let's illustrate this with some examples: かど カード kado kaado "corner" "card" in the case of kaado ... Show more

You try your hand at Japanese at the ramen shop, and ask for "plain" ramen...but your bowl comes back covered in clams! Turns our you asked for asari ("clams"); when you meant assari ("plain"). in Japanese, sometimes you will see double consonants in the middle of a word, like (kk, ss, tt, cc, etc.). Here, you need to pause in the middle as we take extra time to pronounce double constanents. As with the example of "asari" and "assari", the double consonants can really change the meaning of words, so it is key to not overlook them. Did you know about these very similar sounding words? にし (nishi)"west"  and  にっし (nisshi) "daily report スパイ (supai) "spy"  and  すっぱい (suppai) "sour" かた (kata) "shoulder"  and かった (katta)... Show more

Are your eyes failing you, or is that hiragana character tinier than the other one? In Japanese, since there is a limit of hiragana characters, there is the need for some combinations. There are in total, 33 combination sounds that are made using small ya, yu, and yo. The following are examples of these combinations: KYA KYU KYO example : きゃく kyaku ( "customer" ), きゅう  kyuu  ("nine" ) SHA SHU SHO example : しゃかい  shakai  ("society" ) ; しゅみ  shumi  ("hobby" ) CHA CHU CHO example : ちゃいろ  chairo  ("brown" ) ;  ちゅんちゅん  chunchun  ("chirp chirp" ) NYA NYU NYO example : ぐにゃぐにゃ  gunyagunya  ("crooked" ) HYA HYU HYO example : ... Show more

Because the range of syllables (spoken and written) in Japanese is limited, we cannot properly render many foreign sounds in Japanese. And as many more foreign words are used daily in Japanese, the solution was the addition of "new" katakana characters. Here are a few of the more common ones: FA FI FE FO example words: ファイル fairu ("file" ) ; フィンランド Finrando ("Finland" ) ;　 サンタフェ Santa fe ("Santa Fe" ) ;  アイフォン aifon ("iPhone" ) VA VI VU VE VO example words: ヴァイオリン vaiorin  ( "violin" ) ;  ヴィクトリア Vikutoria  ("Victoria" (name)) ;  デジャヴ deja vu ("déjà vu" ) ;  ラスヴェガス Rasu Vegasu ("Las Vegas" ) TI TU Pronounced in English as "tee" and "too." ... Show more

Have you noticed that in words like shika ("deer" ) and hiku ("to pull" ), the "i" sound is almost inaudible?  This often happens also at the ends of the grammatical endings desu and masu, which are pronounced and , respectively. We call this devoicing "i" and "u". That means that they become almost "whispered." This happens when these vowels come between two of the voiceless consonants: p, t, k, s, or h. Also, you will notice that in Japanese, there are some sound syllable sounds that don't exist. For example: "si" doesn't exist, but is replaced by "shi". "ti" becomes "chi" and "tu  which becomes "tsu" "hu" doesn't exist, "fu" is used. However, the "fu" sound is a lot lighter than in English. (To make the sound, blow... Show more