Pronunciation
Japanese isn't difficult to pronounce. Take the time to read this section.
The Japanese language has only 5 vowels: a, i, u, e, o.
- a... as in father
- i... as in we
- u... as in book
- e... as in get
- o... as in old
Note that some vowels are held for a longer period of time (â; ii; û; ei; ô) with the same pronunciation.
With very few exceptions, Japanese consonants are similar to those of English. The exceptions are as follows:
- g... as in go, never as in age
- r... (the trickiest one) more like "d" than "r". Close to a Spanish "r" not trilled or an English "l".
- s... as in so, never as in his
Listen to Japanese:
The Japanese writing system
The Japanese writing system uses four
types of characters:
- Hiragana （ひらがな)
- Katakana （カタカナ）
- Kanji （漢字）
- Rômaji (romaji)
- Hiragana / katakana:
The Japanese system doesn't use vowels
and consonants to form an alphabet like
the Indo-European languages. Hiragana
and Katakana symbols represent the sounds
of syllables (ka,ki,ku,ke,ko…).
For example ‘anata’ (you) is written
in hiragana あなた with the ‘a’ あ, the
‘na’ な and the ‘ta’ た.
Both Hiragana
and Katakana are made up of 46 basic
sound characters.
Katakana is used for words of foreign
origin.
- Kanji
: Kanji are symbolic characters (originally
Chinese) that represent meaning and
sound, and often one Kanji has more
than one pronunciation (or reading,
as it's more commonly called) and meaning.
The characters are the most complicated
looking. Japanese people know about
2,000 or 3,000 by the end of the high
school. However, only 1945 are used
as officials Kanji (called jôyô kanji).
Examples:
山 ‘yama’ (mountain)
車 ‘kuruma ‘ (car)
郵便局 ‘yuubinkyoku’
(post office)
- Rômaji:
The Roman characters (our alphabet).
Japanese people don't use it very much;
some words like ‘CD’ or the brands (Sony,
Sega…) are written Rômaji. But the Rômaji
is used a lot when you learn Japanese.
All kinds of characters are used together
in Japanese writing.
Example: スミスさんは日本の食べ物が好きです。"sumisu
san wa nihon no tabemono ga suki desu"
(Mr Smith likes Japanese food).
As you can see, there
are no spaces in a Japanese sentence.
I hope to be able to give you all the
tools you will need to learn Japanese.
If you follow the lessons from this
website, you will make a rapid and simple
progression, whatever your starting
level or your objectives.
Good luck.
If you have questions regarding the
course, use the
Forum.
