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The pronunciation of Japanese is very regular; for the most part, Japanese words sound as they are written in hiragana and katakana. Altogether, there are 110 different native sounds in Japanese, a walk in the park compared to the thousands that we have in English.

Vowel sounds

In Japanese, the order of the vowels is ‘a, i, u, e, o’; their sound is pure and sharp, similar to the vowels in Spanish, except for the ‘u’, which is sharper in Spanish than in Japanese.

• the ‘a’ (hir. あ, kat. ア) sounds like the ‘a’ in ‘axe’
  
  

  anata – あなた
  formal ‘you’
  

  
  

  atama – あたま
  head

  
  

  sakana – さかな
  fish

  
  
• the ‘i’ (hir. い, kat. イ) sounds like the ‘i’ in ‘ink’
  
  

  migi – みぎ
  right direction

  
  

  kimi – きみ
  casual ‘you’

  
  

  nichi – にち
  day

  
  
• the ‘u’ (hir. う, kat. ウ) sounds like the ‘o’ in ‘who’, or the ‘u’ in the name ‘Uma’
  
  

  uta – うた
  song

  
  

  umi – うみ
  sea

  
  

  kuruma – くるま
  car

  
  
• the ‘e’ (hir. え, kat. エ) sounds like the ‘e’ in ‘pen’, or ‘elf’
  
  

  kesa – けさ
  this morning

  
  

  eki – えき
  train station

  
  

  ebi – えび
  shrimp

  
  
• the ‘o’ (hir. お, kat. オ) sounds like the ‘o’ in ‘ox’
  
  

  kodomo – こども
  child

  
  

  tokoro – ところ
  place

  
  

  otoko no ko – おとこのこ
  boy

  
  

Doubling vowels

There are no diphtongs in Japanese so each appearance of a vowel is pronounced as part of a different syllable, e.g., ‘tooi’ (とおい, ‘far’) has three syllables, and is pronounced in three beats: ‘to-o-i’.

• in hiragana, doubling the vowel doubles its length:
   
  
  
  

  English
  your mother
  your brother
  week
  your sister
  ice

  
  

  romaji
  o-kaa-san
  o-nii-san
  shuu
  o-nee-san
  koori

  
  

  kana
  おかあさん
  おにいさん
  しゅう
  おねえさん
  こおり

  
  

  sounds…
  o-ka-a-sa-n
  o-ni-i-sa-n
  shu-u
  o-ne-e-sa-n
  ko-o-ri

  
  
• in hiragana, an ‘i’ after an ‘e’ sound repeats the ‘e’ sound:
   
  
  
  

  English
  the English lang.
  movie
  teacher

  
  

  romaji
  eigo
  eiga
  sensei

  
  

  kana
  えいご
  えいが
  せんせい

  
  

  sounds…
  e-e-go
  e-e-ga
  se-n-se-e

  
  
  A few exceptions are:
  
  

  English
  ray fish
  sigh

  
  

  romaji
  ei
  tame-iki

  
  

  kana
  えい
  ためいき (ため息)

  
  

  sounds…
  e-i
  ta-me-i-ki

  
  
  ‘tame-iki’ (ため息) is a word composed of two words that we pronounce separately: ‘tame’ (ため- to collect) and ‘iki’ (いき- breath).

• in hiragana, a ‘u’ after an ‘o’ sound repeats the ‘o’ sound
   
  
  
  

  English
  good morning
  very
  thanks

  
  

  romaji
  ohayou
  doumo
  arigatou

  
  

  kana
  おはよう
  どうも
  ありがとう

  
  

  sounds…
  o-ha-yo-o
  do-o-mo
  a-ri-ga-to-o

  
  
  A few exceptions are:
  
  

  English
  to think
  to get lost

  
  

  romaji
  omou
  mayou

  
  

  kana
  おもう
  まよう

  
  

  sounds…
  o-mo-u
  ma-yo-u

  
  
• in katakana, a ‘ー’ (dash) repeats the previous vowel
   
  
  
  

  English
  ramen
  beer
  news
  cake
  cola
  coffee

  
  

  romaji
  raamen
  biiru
  nyuusu
  keeki
  koora
  koohii

  
  

  kana
  ラーメン
  ビール
  ニュース
  ケーキ
  コーラ
  コーヒー

  
  

  sounds…
  ra-a-me-n
  bi-i-ru
  nyu-u-su
  ke-e-ki
  ko-o-ra
  ko-o-hi-i

  
  

Vowel special cases

For the most part, every vowel is pronounced. However, it has become the norm to whisper or drop the ‘u’ and the ‘i’ in some cases; this is called devoicing:

• sometimes the ‘u’ (う) sound is faint or omitted, specially in ‘ku’, ‘tsu’ and ‘su’:
  
  

  English
  taxi
  your wife
  many

  moon
  desk
  to hold

  a little
  am, is, are
  formal verb form
  west; waist; waste

  
  

  romaji
  takushii
  okusan
  takusan

  tsuki
  tsukue
  motsu

  sukoshi
  desu
  masu
  uesuto

  
  

  kana
  タクシー
  おくさん
  たくさん

  つき
  つくえ
  もつ

  すこし
  です
  ます
  ウエスト

  
  

  sounds…
  ta-k-shi-i
  o-k-sa-n
  ta-k-sa-n

  ts-ki
  ts-ku-e
  mo-ts

  s-ko-shi
  de-s
  ma-s
  u-e-s-to

  
  
• sometimes the ‘i’ (い) sound is faint or omitted, specially in ‘shi’ (し) and ‘chi’ (ち):
  
  

  English
  we
  tomorrow
  why

  
  

  romaji
  watashitachi
  ashita
  doushite

  
  

  kana
  わたしたち
  あした
  どうして

  
  

  sounds…
  wa-ta-sh-ta-ch
  a-sh-ta
  do-o-sh-te

  
  
  
  Another example is the disappearance of the い from the えい combination that forms when we follow a ‘te’ form verb, i.e., a verb that ends in て, って or んで, with いる/います or any or its conjugations, e.g., -ている becomes -てる, -っています becomes -ってます, -んでいた becomes -んでた, etc. The following vanishing acts of い are courtesy of the manga ふらいんぐうぃっち:

  

  

  

  

  

Consonant sounds

Most Japanese sounds approximate an English sound. Here are a few unusual ones.

• the ‘r’ is like the Spanish ‘r’ in ‘cara’ or ‘toro’, not like the English ‘r’ in ‘ram’ or ‘car’.
  
  

  English
  color
  noon
  six

  
  

  romaji
  iro
  hiru
  roku

  
  

  kana
  いろ
  ひる
  ろく

  
  
• fu (hir. ふ, kat. フ) sounds like a mix of ‘fu’ and ‘hu’, like the English word ‘who‘ spoken just blowing air, without changing the shape of the mouth:
   
  
  
  

  English
  boat
  futon
  bath

  
  

  romaji
  fune
  futon
  furo

  
  

  kana
  ふね
  ふとん
  ふろ

  
  

  sounds…
  ‘who‘-ne
  ‘who‘-to-n
  ‘who‘-ro

  
  
• the ‘n’ (hir. ん, kat. ン) is a separate syllable, so it takes an additional ‘beat’ to pronounce it:
   
  
  
  

  English
  teacher
  three people
  bookstore

  
  

  romaji
  sensei
  sannin
  honya

  
  

  kana
  せんせい
  さんにん
  ほんや

  
  

  sounds…
  se-n-se-e
  sa-n-ni-n
  ho-n-ya

  
  
• the ‘tsu’ sound (hir. つ, kat. ツ) didn’t exist in English, but now we find it in some Japanese-borrowed words:
   
  
  
  

  English
  tsunami
  ju-jutsu
  shiatsu

  
  

  meaning
  tidal wave
  martial art
  acupressure

  
  

  kana
  つなみ
  じゅじゅつ
  しあつ

  
  

  sounds…
  tsu-na-mi
  ju-ju-tsu
  shi-a-tsu

  
  
• when speaking casually, some ‘m’ and ‘n’ dissapear:
   
  
  
  

  English
  father
  mother
  excuse me

  
  

  Japanese
  o-to-o-sa-n
  o-ka-a-sa-n
  su-mi-ma-se-n

  
  

  casual
  o-to-o-sa
  o-ka-a-sa
  su-i-ma-se-n

  
  

  sounds…
  おとおさ
  おかあさ
  すいません

  
  

Consonant special cases

• ha (は) is always pronounced ‘wa’ when used as a particle
• he (へ) is always pronounced ‘e’ when used as a particle
• wo (を) is often pronounced ‘o’ when used as a particle
• We might think that ‘kingyo’ is pronounced ‘king-yo’, or ‘atsui’ is ‘at-sui’, but the sounds ‘ing’ and ‘at’, as well as many others, don’t exist in Japanese:
  
  

  English
  goldfish
  hot

  
  

  romaji
  kingyo
  atsui

  
  

  kana
  きんぎょ
  あつい

  
  

  sounds…
  ki-n-gyo
  a-tsu-i

  
  
• the ‘n’ (ん) before a ‘b’, ‘m’, or ‘p’ sounds like an ‘m’, so in these cases, the roman version of such ん is not ‘n’ but ‘m’; this is an example of euphony, i.e., making a sound both pleasing to the ear and easier to pronounce:
   
  
  
  

  English
  dragonfly
  stroll
  3 flat things

  
  

  romaji
  tonbo
  sanpo
  sanmai

  
  

  kana
  とんぼ
  さんぽ
  さんまい

  
  

  sounds…
  to-m-bo
  sa-m-po
  sa-m-ma-i

  
  
  
  Here are some examples of this special case:
  

  なんば (nanba) sounds ‘namba’ (src: JPRail)

  

  かんばら (kanbara) sounds ‘kambara’

  

  てんま (tenma) sounds ‘temma’

Pitch accent

Many Japanese words truly have no pre-defined pitch accent, e.g., the word ‘ichi’ (one) is normally pronounced ‘ichi’ (flat), but it might be ‘ichi’ or ‘ichi‘ depending on the context, or the dialect. However, some words do have a specific pitch [wikipedia]. For example:

The kana do not have accents that indicate pitch; the kanjis do not give a clue either; thus, there is no alternative but to listen to a native speaker and memorize the pitch, if any. Still, there are a few hints that can help in certain cases.

Compound words

In English, when we put together two or more words to form a compound word, the compound word preserves the pitches of its component words, e,g,

belly + button → belly-button
carry + over → carry-over

In spite that these compound words are now single words, we still pronounce each of its components with their original pitches, as if we were pronouncing two different words. Japanese does the same, i.e., the components of compound words are pronounced as if they were individual words:

kami (God) + sama (lord) → kami-sama (God)
ashi (foot) + kubi (neck) → ashi-kubi (ankle)
mizu (water) + umi (sea) → mizu–umi (lake)

If the component words happen to be one-syllable long, then we might end up with what appear to be different pronunciations of the same word, when in reality all we are doing is stressing one of the component words. In English, suppose that we have the word ‘twenty-five’; we could stress ‘twenty’ or ‘five’ to draw attention to that component of the word, or pronounce them flat. This is more difficult to see in Japanese where the compound words can be so small that we tend to think of them as single words (e.g., ‘gohan’) instead of multiple words (e.g., ‘go-han’):

However, Japanese takes this a bit further. If we have a single word that is being modified, say, with a suffix, both the word and the suffix keep their pitches:

Hence, the pronunciation tends to be correct when we treat the components of a word as separate words (e.g., nomi–masu), each with its own pitch (if any), instead of considering the word as a single unit (e.g., nomimasu) and attempting to single out a particular syllable.

Dialects

Finally, native speakers from different regions of Japan might pronounce words in different ways. For example, the Japanese spoken in Tokyo, which is considered the ‘standard’ Japanese, tends to stress the first syllable, while the Kansai dialect (e.g., Kyoto, Osaka) tends to stress the last one:

The differences between dialects go way beyond pitch, though. A kansai-dialect speaker would pronounce ‘arigatou’ different from a Tokyoite but, actually, he or she is more likely to give thanks using the local dialect word, i.e., 大きに (ookini); even different regions with the same dialect will speak in different ways, e.g., we could say that the kansai dialect covers, say, Osaka, Hyogo, and Kyoto, but there are marked differences among their speech. Dialects like those of Hokkaido, Okinawa, and many others, have yet their own idiosyncrasies.