Japanese 101 - The Non-Speaker's Speaking Guide

I decided that I'm going to teach you to read (romanized) Japanese today. And I'm going to do it in less than 20 minutes. I will present the Japanese script for those interested, but will write the post in such a way that you don't have to know any of it. Bonus points awarded to those who learn the two kana systems.

Ready? GO.

The Japanese language has three writing systems - two kana syllabaries ("alphabets" made of syllables instead of isolated sounds), and kanji, which are the Chinese characters. We won't worry about kanji today mostly because they are hard and pretty much straight-up memorization.

The two syllabaries are Hiragana and Katakana. Both alphabets represent the exact same sounds (for example, the hiragana あ and the katakana ア both make the exact same sound - "a"). Hiragana is more curvy and flowing, katakana is more angular. Why have two separate ones then? Well, in ancient days (fun fact) hiragana was used by women and katakana by men. Nowadays, hiragana is the basic staple of the Japanese language, with katakana used to denote foreign loan words. For instance, can you guess what the following Japanese words mean? (These are 100% legit.)

コンピューター (conpyuta-) Computer
アイスクリーム (aisu kuri-mu) Ice cream
パスタ　(pasuta) Pasta
カレーライス (kare- raisu) Curry rice
ビール (bi-ru) Beer
ピッザ　(pizza) Pizza. Duh.

When you learn how to convert English sounds to Japanese ones, you can say a LOT more than you would think using only accent-ed English words. But that's a lesson for another day.

Hiragana and katakana follow a pattern and are (good news for everybody) STRICTLY phonetic. There is only ONE of the kana ("letters") below that has more than one pronunciation, and it only has two (AND I won't go into it today). This means that reading Japanese is so, so SO EASY. Pronunciation wise, at the very least.

First, you need to know the pronunciation of the vowels. They only have exactly ONE pronunciation each, always and forever and on into eternity.

A - as in "Ah, this is a snap."

I - as in "Easy!"

U - as in "You can do this!"

E - as in "This is excellent."

O - as in "Oh, no sweat."

Now, behold, my hand-drawn hiragana and katakana chart (because I needed the practice and couldn't find a good one with roman script). You are welcome. Hiragana is in red, katakana in green, and the roman equivalent in blue. Exceptions to the patterns are filled in in orange. Probably should have switched the axis, but hey...

Don't make fun of my handwriting, it's better than yours (unless you are a native and then ok I admit it's not).

The pattern is pretty easy to see, right? Pick your vowel, add a consonant, and magic. The only exceptions are the vowels alone, and the lone "n", which is just tacked on to the end of other kana. Four combinations don't exist (yi, ye, wi, and we) and others are slightly different than you'd expect (si, ti, tu, and hu are actually shi, chi, fu, and tsu respectively).

This is the bulk of the sounds. You can make more by adding "ten-ten" (little hash marks) and "maru" (a small circle) to the upper corner of the character.

"Ten-ten" are also called "softening marks". They take the consonant and change it to its "softer" form. "Maru", or a little circle, changes H to P.

K to G

S to Z

T to D

H to B

Maru: H to P

Put them in a chart and they look like this (exceptions breaking from the general pattern are highlighted in orange):

Notes: if you want to use "Ji" and "Zu", use じ and ず. The alternatives, as marked, are almost never used. But if you're only here for the romanization, it makes no difference anyway.

One last set of sounds and you're a pro.

Ya, yu, and yo can not only be used on their own, but when made smaller, they can be used to blend sounds...and there's probably a more proper, fancier word for it somewhere. You can only do this to the letters that end in "i"  (ki, shi, ji, ni, etc. - row 2 on the main kana chart and their ten-ten and maru counterparts). Ki plus yu, for example, equals kyu. Two syllables becoming one. They're pretty intuitive. Here's the chart:

And that is ALL THE SOUNDS POSSIBLE IN THE ENTIRE LANGUAGE. It looks like a lot, but consider that you already know most, if not all, of these sounds. Also, they don't change. Like, ever. There are no alternative pronunciations (excepting one) and I LOVE IT.

If you want to hear a native pronounce these for you, I recommend this website: Most of the time, what you hear will not surprise you. This will be handy for tackling the /l/ and /r/ controversy though (see advanced points at the end of this article).

http://www.saiga-jp.com/pronunciation_voice.html

So what makes reading Japanese so hard? Why do people not even try to say my last name?

Because you string them together without spaces and they LOOK hard.

Seeyoucanreadthiswithoutanysweat.

Take the name of my district:

HIGASHISHINAGAWA

Stop crying and remember the charts. Japanese syllables are made up of small blocks. So all you have to do, literally, is break it up. Pretend you're back in first grade and take it one syllable at a time:

Hi ga shi shi na ga wa

Now, how hard was that?

Let's try some more:

かめはめは

KAMEHAMEHA

Ka me ha me ha

(If you're not screaming this one, then you don't know what it means. That's OK. Do a google image search on it.)

ふるかわ

FURUKAWA

Fu ru ka wa

(See? That wasn't so bad, was it? I won't believe you if you can say "anesthesiologist" but not my last name.)

ながいぶんをよむことはもんだいない。

NAGAIBUNWOYOMUKOTOWAMONDAINAI

Na ga i bun wo yo mu ko to wa mon dai nai.

You literally just said that long sentences are no problem. Also, congrats for saying you first sentence in Japanese! :D

(As in the case of "dai" and "nai", if there are two vowels in a row they usually belong in the same syllable.)

It takes practice to get it to flow - I get it. I was the same way. But if you learn nothing else from this post, it's DON'T let Japanese scare you. If you speak English, you CAN pronounce it properly (if a bit slowly at first, and that's ok!).

If I have blown your brain, feel free to stop here! You done been edumakated! But if you want more, here are a few more tips to make you a full-blown "pro-amateur" (don't feel bad, that's the level I'm at too).

1) DON'T cheat your vowels

A lot of Japanese words have multiple, repeated vowel sounds (or an o followed by a u). Like the following, for example:

しょうゆ　Shouyu (soy sauce)

おおき　Ooki (big)

おいしい Oishii (delicious)

らいしゅう　Raishuu (next week)

こうえん　Kouen (park)

ええ     Ee  ("yes" or "what?" depending on your inflection)

Each vowel gets its due time (I am told, at least). If you cheat one of them, it has the potential to change the meaning of the word (or, at best, you say something that has no meaning). For example, yuki is "snow", and yuuki is "courage".

You don't necessarily have to double the time you spend on it, but hold it a little longer than you otherwise would. Practice using good old "soy sauce". Say shoyu, then shouyu. You should be able to make a (barely) noticeable difference between the two.

Funny, true story. I tried to tell my husband I went to the biyouin, which is "hair salon". He responded back very worried because I shorted out the first i and said byouin, which is "hospital". Those weren't even doubled sounds and I failed... So yeah. Watch your vowels. They're important.

My favorite of all time is おおおかやま (Oookayama - and yes, that's three "o"s). It's a place. 

Foreigners (...I...) get this wrong ALL THE TIME. And honestly,  I can't notice the difference in natives' speaking 9 out of 10 times. Maybe my ear is still unrefined, but I swear even natives cheat those dang vowels...

But you should not cheat your vowels. You should be proper and better than me.

2) Repeated consonants means a pause

In Japanese kana, this is signaled by a small tsu (つ), but its romanized form looks something like this:

いっしょ　Issho (together)

がっこう　Gakkou (school)

ろっぽんぎ　Roppongi (place name)

にっぽん　　Nippon (Japan)

It's less of a holding out and more of a small pause. Wait just a second and hover over the consonant before you resume. Here's a video so you can hear the difference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVynW7frBig

3) /R/ or /L/? How about NEITHER!

The Japanese get a LOT of flack for mispronouncing, mixing up, and otherwise butchering R and L (think Christmas Story's "Fa Ra Ra" song. That's a Japanese thing, by the way. The Chinese can tell their l's from their r's). The reason why is that neither "r" nor "l" as we know them in English actually exist in Japanese. So really, you can only fault them so much for not being able to make sounds that aren't native to their language. Can you make clicks like in the Khoisan languages?

What the Japanese call "r" is somewhere along the spectrum between the two sounds. Think between /r/ and /l/, but, probably closer to /l/. The best way to mimic this is to listen to natives (use the link provided with the hiragana sounds). In speaking, don't make the /r/ so hard and you'll be fine. I've found that substituting /l/ for /r/ works too. Don't worry too much about it. If all else fails, what else can you do? Whatever comes out of your mouth will have to do. You'll probably sound like you have a terrible accent, but you will (usually) be understood. In my experience at least, the Japanese are fully aware that we crazy English-types keep insisting that "r" actually has two different, distinct sounds.

4) Don't stress anything. Seriously AND literally.

In English, the stress put on certain syllables make a difference. In Japanese, if you stress a syllable you just sound weird. Don't emphasize one syllable over another - keep it smooth and even. If you want to stress a syllable, then stress all of them to match. This is harder, but more amusing too. Let me know how it goes...

I know this one is a beast of a habit to break, and it takes constant, conscious effort. But keep at it!

5) "Tokyo" is TWO syllables. Not three.

"To kyo". Not "to ki yo".

So now you know the basics of Japanese. You can read romanized Japanese like a pro and hopefully have a few tips up your sleeve to speak like a pro too! And all this provided free of charge. You are welcome. :) Happy speaking! Or at the very least, you can now be posh enough to impress your friends by your proper pronunciation of the world's largest city.