Since there are 3 scripts in the Japanese language which collectively have 46+46+(at least)2,150 symbols altogether, it becomes quite clear that maybe writing in Japanese is not the first skill you're going to get the hold of. Luckily, a great many of characters doesn't really mean equal amount of sounds. In fact, there are about 25 sounds in total which is almost twice less than in English. So here lies the secret path to learning and speaking Japanese: through the sounds.
There are 5 basic vowel sounds: あ (ah), い (ee), え (eh), お (oh) —these four I am sure aren't hard— and a sound with a close relative in Russian but not in English: う (u) which is not exactly assured ooh, like in book, but more like a grunt you make as a reaction to something, say, bad-smelly. It is easier to get right if you hear it —the video below is to the rescue (3:12).
Just a small remark: vowel sounds can be short and long. Think about it as a beat because after all Japanese is rhythmic like that. So, a short vowel sound = one beat, a long one = two beats. In romaji, long vowel sounds have a dash over them: ローマ字 (rōmaji) so you pronounce it roh-oh-mah-ji but seamlessly.
In addition to those 5 basic vowel sounds, there are 5 semi-vowel sounds:
- 3 vowel y-sounds: や (ya), ゆ (yu), よ (yo);
- 2 vowel w-sounds: ヮ(wa), ヲ (wo).
Before we go to the consonant sounds, let's take a look at these Japanese words in the English language you definitely already know: sa-ke, su-shi, ki-mo-no, tsu-na-mi, wa-sa-bi, o-ri-ga-mi, su-do-ku, ka-ra-o-ke. What is the pattern you see here? It looks like Japanese words are always made of syllables, which are in majority of cases "consonant + vowel" (CV) clusters. And this is a crucial characteristic of the language!
Each hiragana character is not a letter, but a syllable made up of one consonant followed by a vowel! Except for one symbol —ん— which standartly is called [n] (nasal sound ŋ like in sing) but in speech can be pronounced in, like, 5 different ways.
Same thing is true for katakana characters. And what kanji glyphs stand for? Well, every single kanji hieroglyph represents an idea, a word or a concept, it contains meaning. Additionally to that, there are several ways to pronounce kanji depending on the reading (on or kun) and the meaning. So, obviously learning kanji characters will take you way more time than getting your way around hiragana and katakana combined.
Although even here there is a shortcut: kanji hieroglyphs consist of smaller parts —radicals— which are like building blocks for more complex kanji characters. They are easier to memorize and then you can guess the meaning of a certain hieroglyph based on the idea all the radicals it is made up of might convey together. Say, radical 火 for "fire" and 丁 for "street" combined together create hyeroglyph 灯 which means "lamp". Radical 禾 for "grain" with the "fire" radical 火 together make up 秋 (aki) — "autumn". Maybe this technique doesn't work every single time, but it does help.
For pronunciation and vocal patterns, all this means 2 important things:
- Most of the time you're going to have a vowel at the end of words. And vast majority of the words will have "syllabic" (CVCV) kind of structure. This is the true Japanese way! But look out for the Chinese influence on the language —sound [n] as a final one, which almost without exception only occurs in Chinese loanwords (though a few native Japanese words (especially verb forms) have gained an [n] since its introduction).
- Every syllable becomes 1 beat. Every beat, i.e. syllable, is pronounced with the same volume and length. So the understanding of stress is quite different in the Japanese language than it is, say, in English. You don't stress any of the syllables, they flow at the same speed and rhytm, one after another (which may be the reason why, when written, Japanese sentences have no spaces between the words —yeah, there is that). So try to move on from rushing through some words and stressing others; give each syllable of every word equal "attention": in pitch and in speed.
Finally, consonant sounds. There are like 15 of them. But if sounds like [b] or [m] will be easy to produce, some of them are quite special in their phonetic nature —more on it in a minute. Also, if a consonant sound is doubled (by adding a small version of symbol っ (tsu) for hiragana script, or ッ for katakana script), it means that this consonant takes up a second ("extra") beat which will sound like a pause before it. Like this (0:41):
Every consonant sound is never pronounced on its own, they form a sound unit, called mora, together with each of 5 basic vowel sounds we talked about earlier. So there going to be 5 basic sound units for, say, the sound [k]: か (ka), き (ki), く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko) —each of them represented by a certain symbol. Following the same logic, we've also got 5 sound units for each of these sounds: [s], [t], [n], [h], [m], [r].
Some kanas' sounds can be changed by adding one of the 2 symbols: a double quotation-looking mark called dakuten (゛), which turns sounds [k], [s], [t], [h] into [g], [z], [d], [b] respectively; or a tiny circle (゜) called handakuten (literally, "half" dakuten) making [h] sound like [p]. Sound [v], like the sound [l], does not exist in Japanese.
Pay attention to the sounds for kanas し (shi), ち (chi) and Japanese sound for [s]. They are not exactly equivalent to English sh, ch and s sounds. That is why there is so much debate over the "right" pronunciation of the word sushi. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Remember, those are Japanese sounds, not English ones, so really put in an effort to get them as close as possible to the original.
Another tricky sound is [r]. It is not the rolling r (like in Spanish), it is not the "roaring" r (like in English). It is something else completely. It is explained to be a sound between r and l —these two are thought of as separate sounds in English, but one single, often medial, sound in Japanese. To me, this nice lady explains it best (1:10):
This must be quite enough to give you an idea of the sounds you will encounter in Japanese and get you started on understanding Japanese pronunciation. Of course, you will come across some other nuances and things to consider but this should do for now. Remember, the intonation patterns of Japanese and English do not have many features in common. Unlike English's uneven, often halting rhythm, when spoken correctly Japanese sounds like a steadily flowing stream. So listen up and imitate!
頑張って! (Ganbatte!) Do your best!
"Flow, flow, my syllables! And share this knowledge with others!"
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