Sounding Out Words
Each separate sound in a word or name (known as a 'mora') is pronounced individually and rhythmically with the same duration. Most sounds are represented by single kana, but sounds written with a full-sized kana followed by a half-sized kana count as a single sound.
Vowel Sounds
Each of the sounds in Japanese consists of a vowel sound (the sounds represented by hiragana あ, い, う, え or お), optionally preceded by a consonant sound. In each case the vowel sound is consistent, whatever consonant it follows.
Consecutive Vowels
In English, consecutive vowels are generally elided - the second sound usually either modifies the first sound or is silenced entirely. In Japanese, consecutive (different) vowels are each pronounced distinctly as individual beats.
{ Note that the えい sound in Japanese is actually closer to a lengthened え, like the long vowels described the next section. The い sound is barely pronounced, or not pronounced at all. However, it is customary to write えい in kana rather than ええ or えー.}
Long vowels
When a vowel sound is doubled up, it is pronounced by lengthening the first sound for two 'beats'. The second beat is not accented in any way - the sound is simply continued. For the い, う and え sounds this doubling does not affect the pronunciation, but for あ the long 'a' is more like the 'a' in 'father', and for お the long 'o' is more like the 'o' in 'note'.When Japanese is written in 'romaji' (i.e., using the English alphabet), it is customary to write a long vowel sound with a stroke over the letter. So for example Tokyo would be written Tōkyō, and in the same vein, Kanshudo would be written Kanshūdō. In practice, this is only done when words are being written specifically to indicate how they should be read.
The ふ character
There is no 'hu' sound in Japanese - the kana symbol ふ is pronounced closer to the English 'fu'. However, the 'f' sound is not quite as pronounced as the English - your top front teeth should not touch your bottom lip.
The 'r' sound
ら, り, る, れ and ろ all start with a sound that is close to the English 'r', but 'rolled' slightly by curling your tongue very slightly and touching it briefly to the top of your mouth. It is rather like moving your tongue as if you were saying 'l', while making an 'r' sound.
The 'g' sound
The 'g' sound in が、ぎ、ぐ、げ and ご is pronounced a little more 'nasally' than in English: where in English the 'g' of 'get' is made towards the front of the mouth, in Japanese, try to move the sound further back towards the roof of your mouth.Additionally, the sound is somewhat different depending on the context. When a 'g' sound begins a word, it is pronounced like the hard 'g' in English 'garden'. In Japanese, the hard sound as known as
だくおん
濁音
(voiced consonant).However, when the 'g' sound is used within a word, the sound is closer to the 'ng' in 'hanging' - in some parts of Japan, there is actually quite a distinct 'n' sound preceding the 'g' sound.
つ and っ
The 'tsu' sound is like 'su' with a very brief 't' as in ('tomorrow') at the start. The total length of the sound is a single beat - no extra time is spent adding the 't'.
Historically this sound was tricky for English speakers, but since the word 'tsunami' has now moved into English, it is more easily mastered. Be careful not to accent the word in the English way - tsuNAmi - in Japanese, accents are based on pitch, not emphasis, and you should give each syllable the same time and emphasis: tsu-na-mi.The small っ is used to double the consonant it precedes - so unless it precedes a つ, it is not pronounced つ! Note that the consonant repetition gets a full 'beat' in terms of timing - unlike the small kana よ, や, ゆ which are absorbed into the beat of the kana before them (きょ is kyo not ki-yo).
The topic marker は and the directional particle へ
There are a couple of 'situational irregularities' - words where a kana character is pronounced differently depending on context. The two most notable examples are:
The topic marker は, which uses the kana symbol 'ha', but is pronounced 'wa' when it functions as the topic marker
The directional particle へ, which is pronounced without the 'h' as just 'e' (like the 'ay' in 'hay')So, the sentence
にほん
日本
ではどこへ
い
行
きましたか (where did you go in Japan?) is actually pronounced 'nihon de wa doko e ikimashita ka'.
Pitch accents
Japanese is a 'pitch-accented' language, and it is important to pronounce each sound with the correct pitch. For detailed information on pitch and pitch accents, see The Kanshudo definitive guide to pitch accents, where you'll learn how to accent words correctly in Japanese, how to use pitch symbols in Japanese dictionaries, and how to distinguish some commonly confused words.