Japanese Phonology: 9 Basics to Remember

Let me share a brief, personal anecdote that highlights why learning Japanese phonology or phonetics matters. It was a snowy day in my Japanese class at a small, remote university. During a grammar exercise, my teacher posed a random question to me.

She asked “サミさん！先生はかわいいと思いますか？( さみさん！せんせいは かわいいと おもいますか？ ),” which translates to “Sami! Do you think I’m cute?”

Trying not to appear too relieved by the simple question, I nodded and answered: “うん。とっても怖いです！ ( うん。とっても こわい です！ )” Essentially, I had said: “Yeah, you’re incredibly scary!”

Shocked, my teacher made a sound resembling a choke. A few students began to laugh, but fortunately, my friend quickly intervened, telling the teacher that no, she’s cute, she’s truly cute: “いや！かわいいです！先生はかわいいですよ！ ( いや！かわいいです！せんせいは かわいい ですよ！ )”

That was when I understood the importance of Japanese phonetics and clear pronunciation. By the end, you'll have all the knowledge required to distinguish the differences between こわい ( scary ) and かわいい ( cute )—and much more.

1. ん Counts as One Mora

If you've attempted to mimic Japanese speech, you might have observed that each mora (the units that form syllables) receives one beat and has equal duration.

In other words, one mora is essentially one kana (excluding small kana like the ょ in ぎょ ). So if you're practicing pronunciation by clapping, the number of claps should match the number of kana in a specific word.

Since most Japanese sounds are "consonant + vowel" pairs, the language naturally encourages a somewhat steady rhythm. That's the general guideline, at least.

And then there's ん .

Keep in mind that ん is one mora and should be voiced accordingly. For instance, the word for "now" or 今度 (こんど) should have three beats (KO-N-DO), not two (KON-DO).

2. All Five Japanese Vowels Are Pronounced the Same

Japanese has five vowel sounds:

Apart from the fact that /i/ and /ɯ/ can become voiceless when between specific consonants, these five vowels are always pronounced identically .

When I refer to "voiceless" here, it means your vocal cords do not vibrate when making these sounds. This is simpler to grasp through experience, however. Place your fingers on your neck as if feeling for a pulse. Say the phrase "Who are you?" aloud and then whisper the same phrase. Can you feel the difference?

With only five sounds, ensure you're pronouncing them accurately! And the most effective method is to practice repeatedly.

Here's a suggested approach to practice sounds if you lack a speech teacher for guidance (as I did):

• Locate a video with a native Japanese speaker and precise subtitles.
• Read a sentence from the subtitles.
• Listen to the native speaker say it.
• Re-read the sentence based on what you heard.
• Sit before a mirror and record yourself. Observe your mouth as you speak and listen to the recording. Compare it to the native speaker's version and note any discrepancies.
• Make necessary adjustments based on your observations and repeat the sentence again.
• Continue until you master the sentence, then proceed to another.

Fortunately, you can find videos with native Japanese speakers and subtitles on a language learning platform like Lingflix .

Often, simply hearing the correct pronunciation of a specific sound is sufficient to enhance your own. Other times, you might detect the error but be uncertain how to correct it.

If you're facing the latter issue, you can hire a tutor specifically to focus on your pronunciation skills. A competent instructor can demonstrate what you cannot perceive yourself.

Even without access to a professional tutor, a native speaker or language exchange partner can indicate if your recording sounds correct or if something seems off, even if they cannot explain precisely why.

If you're not prepared for that level of commitment, I'd also like to recommend an excellent YouTube series by Fluent Forever that examines Japanese vowels—including the distinctions between the Japanese and English u sounds—in depth:

3. Avoid Turning Single Japanese Vowels into English Diphthongs

If you compare the IPA pages for English and Japanese linked under "Why Study Japanese Phonetics?," you'll observe one striking contrast between them: the English vowel section is much larger than the Japanese one.

One explanation is that English possesses more vowel sounds than Japanese. Additionally, English can be subtle about the diphthong, a sound comprising two vowels within a single syllable.

For example, consider the English word "no." Say it normally, then say it slowly. You should notice it contains two sounds: a brief /o/ sound followed by the u sound /ʊ/ . Essentially, you're saying "nou."

Now, apply this to Japanese. The no sound in の isn't a diphthong. Here, you pronounce the /o/, but stop before reaching the /ʊ/.

This isn't to say that Japanese never combines two vowels. For instance, the word 能力 ( のうりょく ) or "ability" includes the /o/ sound in の and the Japanese /ɯ/ sound う. The same applies to the pronunciation of Japan's capital 東京 (とうきょう), where both characters have the /o/ and /ɯ/ sounds adjacent to each other.

4. Understand Palatalized Sounds

A concept crucial to Japanese pronunciation is palatalization. You might not know this term, but it's something you frequently do unconsciously.

For example, here's a video with exercises illustrating how to produce the palatalized sounds in English:

And here's another video showing sound alterations in Japanese—i.e., what the diacritic markers in は → ば ・ ぱ actually indicate:

While learning hiragana and katakana , you might have discovered that "small" kana can be added to larger ones to create new sounds—such as び and よ to form びょ .

When you attach a small や , ゆ or よ to Japanese consonants, you're actually representing a palatalized sound.

For example, the g sound in ぎょ and ご aren't identical.

Try it yourself: slowly alternate between the sounds. Close your eyes and concentrate on your mouth. Where are the sounds originating? What does your mouth feel like? You should sense that the sound in ぎょ seems to come from a somewhat "higher" position than that of ご.

If you're having difficulty, I find whispering the sounds helpful. Again, ぎょ contains a palatalized /g/, while the sound in ご is a plain /g/.

5. Differentiate the Japanese /h/, /ç/ and /ɸ/

Although は, ひ , ふ , へ and ほ are all written as starting with the letter h (as visible in this study ), there are actually three distinct initial consonants here: /h/ , /ç/ and /ɸ/ .

Now, return to ご vs. ぎょ and identify the difference in sensation once more, then attempt the same with ほ and ひょ . You should detect a variation in position. And if you hold your hand in front of your mouth, you should also observe much less air hitting your hand when you say ひょ.

The sound in ひ, /ç/, is a palatalized version of the /h/ sound, while /ɸ/ is a new yet manageable sound that requires some lip manipulation. This is significant because ふ combines consonant and vowel sounds not found in English: /ɸ/+/ɯ/.

So, what distinguishes the /f/ (as in "fan") we all know from /ɸ/ as in Mt. 富士 (ふじ)?

Well, examining this visual IPA chart , you can see that the technical term for /f/ is "labiodental fricative" whereas /ɸ/ is "bilabial fricative." That is elaborate terminology for one sound involving your lip contacting your teeth and another involving both lips but not your teeth.

Pretend you're blowing out a candle and freeze midway. Notice how your mouth feels, and then maintain that posture while saying ふ. If unsure, check this link from Wasabi Japanese and compare your pronunciation to a native speaker's.

6. The Japanese “R” Is Very Different From the English One

My Japanese teacher (the one from the introduction) once mentioned that the most challenging English word for Japanese speakers to pronounce is "really." This is because, regarding tongue position, the Japanese /ɾ/ falls somewhere between the English /r/ and /l/.

Here's a clear explanation of the Japanese r sound:

Imagine you're singing a Christmas carol— "la la la la la, la la la la!" —and focus on your tongue's location. It should be just above your upper teeth, nearly touching them. Now, switch to the start of a simple cheer— "ra ra ra!" —and again, pay attention to your tongue's position.

Then, say la , and without halting your breath, say r, producing a nonsense la-err type sound. You should notice that you essentially trace a small line back from your l tongue position to reach your r tongue position.

Now that you understand that, choose a middle position and say a few Japanese words starting with this r sound like ラーメン ("ramen"). If the sound isn't an l, not quite an r, but seems somewhere in between, you're on the right path!

7. し Doesn’t Sound Like “She” (And Also You May Have to Learn Some Chinese)

Contrary to what you might have learned, し does not sound identical to "she."

The sound in "she" is termed a "voiceless postalveolar fricative" and is denoted as /ʃ/ . Meanwhile, the sound in し (and its katakana equivalent シ ) is a "voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative" and is represented as /ɕ/ .

They are different sounds.

Unfortunately, there aren't many excellent resources on pronouncing し, so I'll direct you to some videos intended for Mandarin Chinese learners, since the /ɕ/ sound exists in both languages.

Another sound present in both Mandarin and Japanese is /tɕ/. Japanese denotes this sound with the characters つ in hiragana and ツ in katakana.

You can begin by watching a video from OLS Mandarin, which contrasts several Mandarin consonant sounds. Focus carefully on the pinyin labels for x and j , which roughly match the sounds of し and つ, respectively:

Try to discern the difference between the two sounds, and then explore some videos that discuss the sounds more specifically, like those by Yoyo Chinese ( for し and for ち ):

If you prefer a more precise explanation and don't mind learning a bit about Mandarin sh and zh, check out the outstanding videos by Litao Chinese ( for し and for ち ):

Unfortunately, the Japanese じ sound (variably, /ʑ/ and /dʑ /) doesn't exist in Mandarin. The sole difference between しand じ is that し is unvoiced (your vocal chords don't vibrate) while じ is voiced (your vocal chords should vibrate).

8. There Are Five Different “N” Sounds in Japanese

Specifically, they are:

• The normal n sound or /n/. For example, you have 海苔 ( のり ), the dried seaweed commonly used in Japanese cuisine .
• The palatalized /ɲ/. This occurs before consonants other than い or the small よ, や and ゆ sounds.
• The n that becomes m. If you've ever been confused about why 頑張る ( がんばる ) or "good luck/do your best" often appears misspelled as gambaru in some textbooks or phrasebooks, you're likely aware of the rule that /n/ becomes /m/ (as in "mom") before /b/ (as in boy) or /p/ (as in pot).
• The /ŋ/ sound. This resembles the ng sound of -ing in words like "going" or "sing." It happens when ん precedes a /k/ or /g/ sound.
• The /ɴ/ sound. This is the sound of ん when it appears before a pause or, as Wikipedia states, at the end of an utterance like in すみません… or "I’m sorry/excuse me…" By the way, here's a useful thread explaining how to pronounce すみません .

9. Japanese Has Pitch Accents (Just Like English!)

Similar to English (where the word "certain" is pronounced CER-tain and not cer-TAIN), words in Japanese receive emphasis in a particular manner.

Remember that Japanese words are all stressed equally, but they adhere to several unique patterns of high and low pitches. 銀行 (ぎんこう) or "bank," for instance, begins with a low pitch followed by three high-pitched morae.

Although Japanese words follow a few primary patterns, these patterns aren't fixed and change based on the sentence context. For example, in the Tokyo/standard dialect of Japanese , there are two fundamental rules:

1. The first two morae of a word will not share the same pitch level. In other words, if the first mora is high, then the second will be low and vice versa.

2. Once a word's pitch drops, it won't rise again. Unlike Mandarin Chinese, standard Japanese does not have the falling-then-rising intonation found in words like 买 or "buy."

If all this is confusing, I recommend dedicating some time to understanding how pitch accent functions. You'll also want to learn several common words for each pattern to develop a sense of how each one feels. Then, simply pay attention to their accent when you consume media or listen to conversations .

If you wish to explore this thoroughly, a person named Dogen has produced an extensive series on the topic.

Why Study Japanese Phonetics?

When I started learning Japanese, I was informed that Japanese pronunciation was quite simple. In fact, we only devoted one class session to pronunciation for the following reasons:

• The language is atonal. It's unlike, for instance, Mandarin Chinese where how you pronounce certain words alters their meaning and the character used to write them. For example, the Chinese characters for "buy" and "sell" are 买 and 卖, respectively. Both sound like "mai," but the former has a falling then rising intonation, while the latter only has a falling intonation.
• Spelling is phonetic and pronunciation is consistent. In other words, words sound as they look and look as they sound. Even someone who has never studied Japanese could read a text in romaji and be understood without much difficulty (unlike someone learning French, for example).
• It's relatively easy for native speakers of languages like Spanish. If you pronounce the Japanese vowels as you do in Spanish, you'll be fine.

This leads to a question you're likely considering, given that you've chosen to read a full article on the topic: if Japanese pronunciation is so straightforward, why would someone dedicate time to studying Japanese phonetics— or what Webster’s English Language Learner Dictionary defines as "the study of speech sounds?"

The reason ultimately comes down to this: Japanese contains sounds absent in English and vice versa. Spend a few minutes examining the IPA pages for English and Japanese , and you'll discover that the two languages may have similar sounds but they aren't exactly the same.

Wow, that was quite a journey! We've just gone through a massive amount of information about Japanese phonetics. Now, you're probably wondering if it's worth all the trouble to understand this material—and honestly, that's for you to decide.

If you pronounce Japanese words "incorrectly" (whatever that means) and native speakers can still understand you, that's acceptable. After all, English speakers find a French accent charming, and you'll likely receive leeway for being a foreigner anyway.

But if your aim is to achieve fluency in spoken Japanese, learning about its phonetics will help you get there. Gambatte, ne!