Help:Japanese

Help:JP

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Japanese pronunciation

Throughout Wikipedia, a modified version of the widely accepted Hepburn romanization is used to represent Japanese sounds in Roman characters. The following are some basic rules for using Hepburn to pronounce Japanese words accurately.

Vowels

The vowels a, e, i, o, and u are generally pronounced somewhat similarly to those in Italian, Portuguese, French and Spanish.
The vowel u is similar to that of the oo in moon, although shorter and without lip-rounding. In certain contexts, such as after "s" at the end of a word, the vowel is devoiced, so desu may sound like dess.
Japanese vowels can either be long (bimoraic) or short (monomoraic). The macron denotes a long vowel.
- Long a, o and u sounds are usually written with macrons as ā, ō and ū. The notation "ou" or "oo" is sometimes used for a long "ō", following kana spelling practices.
- Long e and i sounds are usually written ei /ee and ii, but in neologisms are instead written with macrons as ē and ī.
- Circumflexes (âêîôû) occasionally appear as a typographical alternative to macrons, especially in older texts.

Japanese vowels can be approximated in English as follows:

vowel	a	i	u	e	o
British Received Pronunciation	between cap and cup	as in feet	as in boot	as in vet	as in dog
General American	as in father	as in feet	as in boot	as in hey	as in know

Moraic n

An n before a consonant is moraic (its own mora).
A moraic n followed by a vowel or y is written n' to distinguish it from mora that begin with the consonant n.
The moraic n has various phonetic realisations:
- Before an n, t, d or r, it is pronounced [n].
- Before a k or g, it is pronounced [ŋ].
- Before an m, b or p, it is pronounced as [m]. It is written as m in some versions of Hepburn, but as n in Wikipedia’s modified Hepburn.
- It is otherwise pronounced as [ɴ] or [ɯ̃].

Consonants

Consonants other than f and r are generally pronounced as in English.
The consonant f is bilabial: the teeth are not used, and the sound is much softer than the "f" of English.
The consonant r is similar to Korean r. To an English speaker's ears, its pronunciation lies somewhere between a flapped t (as in American and Australian English better and ladder), an l and a d.
Double consonants (kk, tt, etc.) basically indicate a slight, sharp pause before and stronger emphasis of the following sound, more similar to Italian than English. Spelling anomalies:
- double ch is written as tch (sometimes cch),
- double sh is written as ssh and
- double ts is written as tts.

When a consonant is followed by another of the same letter, the first consonant is written with a chiisai (made-smaller) tsu (つ/ツ). Exception: Double n. In this case, being as n (ん/ン) is a single consonant, it can be written by itself. (Ex: Woman: Onna-おんな)

Japanese names

In Japan the given name always comes after the family name:

Example: 福田康夫 (Template:Transl). 福田 ("Template:Transl") is the family name.

However, to reflect the Western convention of listing the given name first and the family name last, some Japanese people born since the establishment of the Meiji era (1868-09-08) conform to the "given name, family name" order in western texts. So 福田康夫 (Template:Transl) is listed as "Yasuo Fukuda". On Wikipedia, normally Western order is used for people born from the first year of Meiji (1868) onward.

Japanese pronunciation

Vowels

Moraic n

Consonants

Japanese names

See also