The Japanese alphabet consists of 46 letters. It is essential to know all of them, because although a Japanese word is made by connecting the letters, much like an English word, every Japanese letter has its own pernounciation/sound, and so if there were three letters in the word, there would be three different syllables, guaranteed; unlike in a English word, you would connect each letter to make a sound.
The 5 "leading" letters in the Japanese language are the follows with the pronunciation, in alphabetical order:
a(the sound of ha in "what"), i ("e"), u(pronounced oo in "moon"), e(prornounced e in "men), and o (pronounced o in "tone".)br>**By remembering how to pronounce just those five letters above, you can easily pronounce the other 41 letters. The reason is because when the other letters are written in English (like above) every one, except for one, will be written with two english letters; the second letter always either a,i,u,e, or o, having the pernounciation as stated above.** For example, there's a Japanese letter written in English as "ka" the pronounciation of the first letter(K) is pronounced the same way you would connect a letter in English. However, the second word sounds the way stated above. So in the Japanese letter "ka", there would be a sound that's formed from a silent k and a. br>
Example
Japanese WORD "yume": yume can be divided into two syllables, or two japanese letters (each letter is a syllable). After seperating the word, it becomes the letter YU and ME. In YU, the y is a pronounced as a silent y as in yes, and the u is purnounced, as stated at the very beginning, like oo in "moon". So when we combine those two pronunciation, YU will have a sound of y-woo, like the sound YOU. In ME, the m is pernounced like the silent m in mom, and e is the sound "e" in let. Combine those two Japanese letters, and you will pronounced the word "yume" like you-meh.
Simplified Rules for Regular Letters
When written in English, one Japanese letter will always contain two English letters. br>2. The first letter (eg. k in ka) will always be a silent form of the letter, EXCEPT when the first letter is one of the "leading" letters. (see above).
3. The second letter will always have one of the 5 pronunciation of the Japanese leading letters a,i,u,e,o, (see pronunciation at top) or the letter "n", which is a SILENT form.
More examples
"Maru" pronounced as ma (like in mama) lu (like the lu in the name Luke)
"hasami" pernounced as ha (self-explanitory) sa (like ca, in the French word Cava) mi (like me).
If there are six english- written letters in a Japanese word, such as hasami, you will know it contains 3 different Japanese letters (b/c each Jap. letter is written in 2 Eng. letters), and if you know that there are 3 different Japanese letters, you would know how to read it by syllables (meaning you would not read it has-a-mi, or ha-sam-i, but always ha-sa-mi.
However, that rule does not apply for many of the Japanese words.
Rules for Irregular Words
Yasashii -In this word, there are two problems. When you first divide the word up into syllables, you get ya-sa-sh-ii. You can now easy pronounce ya and sa without problem following the Simplified Rules for Regular Letters (see above). However, the syllable letter "sh" is irregular, because as I have stated before, the second letter in "sh" must be either a,i,u,e, or o. So, if there is an H in the place of the SECOND letter, you can make the syllable sound simply by adding the word after the letter h. So ya-sa-sh-ii will instead, be pernounced like ya-sa-shi-i. The shi is pernounced like she. However, if the H is in place of the first letter, such as in ha, you can just pronounce it regularily. Dividing up words into syllables is by all means uneccessary, but I am only showing the division for beginners who does not yet know where to break the sound.
The second problem is the double i. Of course, if you divide the word yasahii into syllables (like above) then you would have no problems pronouncing the entire word. However, there's also a word called "ii" For regular letters, I have stated that the first letter is a pronounced in a silent form, and the emphasis is on the second letter. However, for "ii", you have to pernounce both of the letters clearly. So it actually becomes the syllable i-i. (pernounced e-e) This rule only applies to double i's.
However, there may be words with other double letters, such as "matte" or "chotto".
let's simplify matte and make it into syllables. It becomes ma-tt-e. Here's the problem. You cannot directly sound out two letters alone that are the same (other than double a,i, u,e,o). When you have a word with two same letters beside eachother in it, make the first of the double letter a syllable, and the second of the double letter becomes a syllable with the letter after it.
So, ma-tt-e actually becomes ma-t-te. (The first "t" is a syllable by itself, and the second "t" becomes a syllable with the letter after it, which is "e". But what about "chotto"? Regularily, you would divide the word into syllables as ch-ot-to. However, even though "chotto" contains double t's, when it's divided into syllables, the t's are not in the same syllables, as it is in "matte". So does this mean we can pronounce "chotto" like any other word? The answer is no. in chotto would still have to be a syllable by itself, and the second "t" would be a syllable with the letter after it. So instead of the naturally divided ch-ot-to
we would have instead, cho-t-to. What happened with the o that accompanied the first "t" after the first "t" became a syllable by itself? Well, the o became part of the first syllable, Ch, becoming Cho. So after the transformation, the t by itself is a silent form. However, you would still have to emphasize on that t. So it's almost like a small jump pause between t and to. If people cannot hear you emphasize on the single "t", it means that you are saying the words too fast, becoming just choto.
Same rule, as said before, applies to yasashii and kappa. With no further explanation, kappa WOULD become ka-pp-a, but instead, transforms to ka-p-pa. This means that you would have to empasize on the first p, as well as the second p. So you would not be saying just "kapa".
Another greatly mispronounced word is konnichiwa. People tend to say it just konichiwa. However, remember, there are 2 n's in the word. It will be pronounced as ko-n-ni-chi-wa. Pay attention to the first n and emphasize that as well. (Although it's a silent from.)
3. Example: Tsukue, ryuichi: For the word Tsukue, notice the TSU. Whenever tsu appears in a word, no matter at the beginning middel or end, it automatically becomes ONE syllable. So the word would be pernounced like tsu-ku-e, not ts-uk-ue. But how do you pronounce tsu anyway? A good example is the pronounciation of "t's" in "what's or "that's". It is almost exactly the same sound, but emphasize a little on the U.
Ryuichi -In this word, notice the RYU. Whenever ryu appears in a word in any place, it becomes one syllable. Notice the rest of the letters, ICHI. If you devide that into syllables for pronunciation, it becomes ic-hi. You cannot read ic because the second letter is not a,i,u,e, or o. So when a situation happens when you cannot read a syllable because the second letter is not proper, then keep on adding the letter after it so it becomes a sound. So, ic-hi, would become ich-i. Ich is still not a pernouncation. Finally it will become ichi as a single syllable, and now you can read it because the last word is "i". So the word will actually be ryu-ichi.
Shunkan -Let's first divide the words into syllables using the simple rules. It becomes sh-un-ka-n. This is not the proper pronuncation because sh cannot be a syllable. The second letter is an h, not a,i,u,e, or o. So you keep on adding letters after it until the last word of a syllable becomes one of the 5 leading letters. However, there is a special rule. If there is the letter "N" AFTER any of the 5 leading letters in a word, the "n" can be the last letter of a syllable. For example, we have said before that "sh" in sh-un-ka-n cannot be an indivisual syllable. So we can add the letter after that to form it, and the sound/syllable becomes shu. However, there is also the letter "n" after "u", which is one of the five leading letters. So the syllable will actually become shun instead of shu. After the changes, shunkan will be read shun-ka-n. Now, there is another singular syllable "n" after the syllable ka. So the syllable can actually become kan, instead of ka-n. Now, the proper pronunciation becomes shun-kan.
Other Pronunciation Rules
Ge -Ge is a letter in the Japanese alphabet that is in a different form of another letter. (We will discuss this later).When there is a "g" in a word, it is always pernounced like the 'g' in Gum, not the 'g' in Gemini.
Example: "Chi" When there is a "c" in a word, it is always pronounced like the 'c' in children, not the 'c' in cat.
Y -The letter y is pronounced like the sound of the Japanese letter "I". When y is in place of the i, it usually means that you would read the letter/syllable after the y fast and smoothly, where as if you have i, the word is usually stiff and you can tell easily the number of syllables.
