Sounds

The Japanese sound system is relatively simple, compared to most languages. For the most part, syllables consist of at most one consonant and one vowel. There are 5 vowel and 17 consonant phonemes (compared to 15 vowels and 22 consonants in English).

Vowels
Japanese vowels are pure sounds like their Italian counterparts. The only unusual vowel is the high back vowel, which is indicated as /u/ in the diagram. This vowel is often described as unrounded, but is actually pronounced with "compressed lips", which is a different articulatory gesture from either rounded or unrounded lips: it is unrounded, but without spreading. The "u=" to the right of the diagram are possible narrow transcriptions using IPA, as suggested by the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association.

The consonant /r/ is tricky for English speakers. To an English speaker's ears, its pronunciation lies somewhere between an "r", an "l", and a "d". The sound may be made by lightly placing the tongue on the back of the upper set of teeth. Some have noted that the pronunciation is close to the Spanish "r".

Phonology
Japanese undergoes a variety of assimilation processes.

· /N/ is usually a uvular nasal, but:

o /N/ becomes [m] before /p/ and /b/ (like English "ample", "umber);

o /N/ becomes [n] before coronals /d/ and /t/ (like English "and" and "ant");

o /N/ becomes palatal before /j/ and /i/ (like English "news");

o /N/ becomes velar before /k/ and /g/ (like English "sunk" and "sung");

o /N/ becomes a nasalized vowel before a vowel, approximant, /h/, or /s/.

· /s/ and /z/ become alveolo-palatal [?] and [?] before /i/, /j/

· /h/ becomes palatal [ç] before /i/ (like English "sh" but considerably softer);

· /h/ becomes bilabial [?] before /u/ (like English "f" but considerably softer: it is not made by pressing the teeth against the lips; rather, it is made by closing one's lips slightly and lightly blowing.);

· /i/ and /u/ tend to become devoiced except when they are in accented or lengthened syllables. Often, preceding fricatives will replace the vowel altogether.

Intonation
In English, stressed syllables in a word are pronounced louder and longer. In Japanese, all moras are pronounced with equal length and loudness. Syllables can consist of one, two, or three moras, depending on the presence or absence of a long vowel and/or a doubled consonant (really glottal stops), each of which adds one mora to the syllable length. Japanese is therefore said to be a syllable-timed language, although mora-timed would be a more accurate description.

In Japanese, a stressed syllable is merely pronounced at a higher pitch. This is part of the Japanese intonation pattern.

Japanese does have a distinct intonation pattern. This pattern can be heard not only in individual words, but also in whole sentences. Intonation is produced by a rise and fall in pitch over certain syllables. In the case of questions, the Japanese intonation patterns bear little resemblance to the English ones. This is a large source of confusion for westerners.

The Japanese intonation pattern varies with regional dialect.