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Japanese Go Pronunciations
Keywords: Culture & History
Japanese is one of the easiest languages in the world to pronounce. It has a relatively small number of well-defined sounds, most of which are not that hard for the Western tongue, the possible exception being the Japanese "r" sound. And Japanese is pronounced almost exactly as written (either in kana, or transliterated Roman characters).
Having said that, it's always best to hear a native speaker's pronunciation; you can do that This SL page refers to a Japanese language teaching book[1] for the basics of Japanese pronunciation in regard to English speech. Short vowelsJapanese language has the following basic five vowels: a, i, u, e, o. They are short vowels, pronounced clearly and crisply. If you pronounce the vowels in the following English sentence, making them all short, you will have their approximate sounds. The u is pronounced with no movement forward of the lips.
Ah, we soon get old. Long vowels
Long vowels are essentially a doubling of a single vowel, like ええ (ee), but most of the time it is written as えい (ei), like in えいご (英語, eigo: the english language). For a, i and u it is always simply a doubling of the single vowel. おう (ou) is the general rule for o but in some words it is traditionally written おお (oo). The romanised spelling with double vowels is known as "wapuro romaji", (word-processor romanisation). The "correct" way to show a long vowel is with a macron over the letter, but since typewriters, word processors and the like are unlikely to have the ability to print macrons, the double-letter style is used instead. Long i is an exception: it is always written as ii, never with a macron. The restThe rest of the sounds in Japanese language are formed by a consonant and one of the basic five vowels. The consonants are k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w, n/m, and their voiced counterparts g, z, d, b, and p. In addition, a "y" sound may intervene between the initial consonant and the vowel, as is seen in words such as "byou" (second).
Examples: ka, te, mu, yo, ra, gi, ryo, etc.
Ja, ji, etc. sounds like the 'j' in 'John'. Fu (ふ) is pretty hard to pronounce for English speaking people, since it's something of a combination of the 'h' and 'f' sound. You breathe out more than when pronouncing 'f' but it's not entirely 'h' either. Try to find an example in an anime show for the correct pronunciation of it. It's similar to the sound you make when you blow out a candle. The r in Japanese is almost equal to an l sound (they can't hear the difference ;-)) and it's best spoken as a very short 'r' sound with the tip of your tongue slapping down once like when pronouncing 'l'. Yet again, it's a bit of a combination of both, hence the confusion for Japanese people. The g as in ga, gi, etc. at the beginning of a word is hard (like 'g' in 'garden'), but when it occurs in the middle or in the last syllable of a word, it often becomes nasal, as in eiga (えいが, 映画: movie). However, nowadays many Japanese use a g sound which is not nasal... ;) N is the only independent consonant not combined with a vowel. When it is at the end of a word it is pronounced nasally. Otherwise it is usually pronounced like the English 'n'. But if it is followed by syllables beginning with b, m or p, it is pronounced more like 'm'. It used to be spelled with an m in romaji (romanized Japanese characters) but modern practice is to use 'n' regardless of pronunciation (it's "honinbo", not "honimbo", for instance; in fact, strictly speaking it's "hon'inbou", but go talk to a brick wall). Another example of mispronunciation like "hon'inbou" is "kin'en" (ki-n-en, "no smoking") and "ki'nen" (ki-ne-n, "anniversary"). Shows how pronunciation makes all the difference. :) Examples of go terms and their pronunciations
flavour,taste
sealed move
trick move, although 嵌め is the stem of the verb 嵌める (hameru) meaning "to put in", "to insert" (and also "to make love" hehe ;)).
adjective meaning "light" (also "non-serious" or "minor")
"me" pronounced as in "look at me". No translation found though (not counting non-literal translations).
"mo" is a short vowel, "you" a long one sounding like "yore". Means pattern, design, figure. Common mistakesOften, Japanese terms are pronounced wrong when one of the syllables should be pronounced with a long vowel which isn't always apparent in the romanized (romaji) version. Ex. Chuban 中盤 (middle stage) where "chu" has the long vowel "uu". At other times, words are pronounced as in English with long vowel at places where it's actually a short vowel. Ex. Sente where the "te" is often prolonged (like in "sensei") while it's really a short "e" as in "mexico". Words with an interstitial "y", such as "byou", are *not* pronounced like bye-oh.
[1] [2] wo is actually pronounced o (without the 'w') and written を (used as object marker). It is sometimes pronounced wo in songs. Authors
This is a copy of the living page "Japanese Go Pronunciations" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |