Some Japanese pronunciation that are difficult for Westerners are the long vowels, like "o" in joseki. Pronounce it jooseki. two "o" sounds. Then there are the syllables like "su" and "tsu" which are not strongly voiced, as in tesuji (tehsji) and tsuke (tskeh). Or Sute ishi (sacrifice stone) steishi. Finally, there are regional pronunciation differences.

is really easy. Consonants are pronounced as in English, and vowels are pronounced as in Spanish. This means that

"a" is always pronounced roughly as in "sun",
"e" is always pronounced as in "pet",
"i" is always pronounced as in "pit",
"o" is always pronounced roughly as in "pot", and
"u" is always pronounced as in "boot".

Interesting stuff.

I've been learning Japanese considerably longer than I've been learning go (despite this I'd say I'm about 10kyu at Japanese language(!))
I find it difficult to use Japanese pronunciation once a concept gains currency in an english speaking environment.

This happens commonly outside of go - for example in north England I would always hear karate pronounced something like kuh-rah-ty with a stress on the rah. To speak a sentence in your normal english accent and then pronounce the word more like kah-rah-tey might sound a little pretentious.
I always think that atari for example is too common a part of english go conversations to pronounce in the japanese style. Rarer concepts I would pronounce in the Japanese sound system.

For people familiar with English, I think only the "e" example is correct.

http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/users/furue/jp-pron.html
This seems to have a more accurate one for English speakers.

It seems the "u" is correct as well.

Well, as I pronounce sun, the short u is like the Sanskrit a, not the Japanese a, as in san. {shrug}

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Visualize whirled peas.

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No, I mean

Oh! Yeah, except for being short (lasting about ¼ sec.)

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I speak beginner level Japanese and this thread is just confusing to me. I recommend the OP to download any beginner level Japanese app,like Duolingo which has Japanese now or find some website or Youtube video that shows pronunciation of the hiragana. It's much simpler hearing it than reading text that shows how you should pronounce it.

Probably there are some differences between British English and American English?

boot:

BE [buːt] (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pron ... ish/boot_1) AE [but] (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pron ... can/boot_1)

fool:

BE [fuːl] (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dict ... ish/fool_1) AE [ful] (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dict ... can/fool_1)

full:

BE [fʊl] AE [fʊl]

Yes... which UK dialect ? And which US dialect ?

Proper Japanese Pronunciation:

Japanese words are made up of morae (basically syllables, see end note for difference). Each mora should be pronounced for the exact same length of time. There is no stressed mora in Japanese, although some will be pronounced at a higher pitch (which ones depends on the dialect). There are no silent letters.

Each mora has the following form: [Optional Consonant] - [Vowel]. No consonant other than "n" can appear without a vowel after it. No mora contains two vowels or two consonants, although a single vowel or consonant can be lengthened to take up two morae.


Vowels are pronounced like this (double quotes = Japanese, single quote = English):

"a" is like the 'a' in 'father'

"e" is like the 'e' in 'bet'. It doesn't have a 'y' sound after it, although it can sound like this at times to English speakers (e.g. the word "me" is pronounced like the word 'met' without the 't', not like the word 'may').

"i" is pronounced like the 'ea' in 'tea' or 'beat', but shorter in length.

"o" is pronounced like the word 'oh', but shorter in length and without the 'w' sound after it.

"u" is pronounced like the 'ue' in the word 'blue', but shorter in length.


Vowels can be lengthened by writing them twice in a row (e.g. kaa, kee, kii). The exception is the vowel "o" with is lengthened by writing a "u" after it, although it is pronounced like an "o". Lengthened vowels count as two morae (so "kou" is pronounced "ko-o", with the "o" pronounced once but held for twice the time as a normal vowel). Often in English, lengthened vowels are not written (e.g. the first "o" in byo-yomi is long, so it could be written "byou-yomi", pronounced "byo-o-yo-mi").

In academic contexts, lengthened vowels are written with a line over the vowel (e.g. byō, jōseki, etc).

Often, the vowels "u" and "i" in morae such as "shi", "su", and "tsu" are pronounced very softly, and sound as if they are not pronounced at all. So, for example, "hoshi" can sound almost like it is pronounced as 'ho-sh' (still as two syllables).

The vowels "ai", "ei", and "oi" are properly pronounced as two morae: "a-i", "e-i", and "o-i". So, the word "Meijin" in pronounced as four morae: "me-i-ji-n" ("n" being its own mora). At the pace of speech commonly used, these will sound like they are one-syllable diphthongs (so "meijin" sounds like 'may-jean'), but this is not the case.

The consonants are basically pronounced like in English, with a few things to make note of:

The "r" is pronounced with a tongue tap, sort of like a mix between the English 'l' and 'r'. Sometimes, it will sound like an 'l' to English speakers.

When consonant has a "y" after it before the vowel, the mora is pronounced as one mora (e.g. the word "byo" in "byo-yomi" is pronounced as one syllable [ignoring the long "o"], almost like the English word 'yo' with a 'b' before it.). The exceptions is that the "y" is not pronounced with the consonants "J", "Sh" and "Ch", and often is not written in English (e.g. "shya" is pronounced "sha", "jyo" is pronounced "jo", "chyu" is pronounced "chu", etc.). In these cases, the 'y" when written is simply due to the way Japanese hiragana works.

The "h" in the mora "hi" and "hy + vowel (hyo, hya, etc)" is not pronounced an "h", but rather has a whistling sound to it. There is no equivalent sound in English. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for this sound is "ç". An example of a word containing this sound is "hiki".

The "h" (often written as an "f") in the mora "hu/fu" is pronounced like an 'f', but without the teeth touching the lips. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol is "ɸ". An example word with this sound is "kifu".

The "n" by itself as its own mora (e.g. in the word "sanrensei" ["sa-n-re-n-se-i"]) is pronounced like a "m" before a "p", "b", or "m". Often, it will be written as an "m" in these cases. An example word, although not strictly a Go word, is "gambatte" (Good luck/give it your best). Sometimes the "n" will also sound like "ng".

The "n" can also appear with a vowel, such as in the word "Nihon". Sometimes it is unclear in English as to whether or not the "n" is at the start of a mora or its own mora. In these cases, an apostrophe can be used. For example, in "honinbo/honinbou", the first "n" is its own mora, so the word is "ho-n-i-n-bo-o", and not "ho-ni-n-bo-o", and the word can be written as "hon'inbo" to reflect this.

The "ts" in the mora "tsu" is always pronounced like the 't's' in the English word 'let's'.

The morae "dzu" and "zu" are pronounced identically, with a 'z' sound. The difference in writing is simply due to the Japanese hiragana system.

Double consonants are pronounced as a slight pause on the consonant (as two morae).

There are a few other differences, but they are to subtle to mention and can realistically only be learned by copying native Japanese speakers.


Edit: I made an error. The "n" (ん in hirgana) is a mora by itself, and not at the end of a mora. Similar to the "ai/ei/oi" situation, it will often sound as if it is pronounced at the end of the mora, but this is not the case. However, these words are still pronounced as a single syllable. It is situations like these where the mora and syllable are different. Syllables have to do with vowels and groupings of phonemes, whereas morae have to do with timing and rhythm of speech. So, each mora is pronounced for the same length of time, but a syllable might contain multiple morae (lengthened vowels and consonants, and "n" morae). Therefore, words like "san" and "byou" should be pronounced for the same length of time as words like "tsuke" (all are two morae), despite "byou/san" being one syllable and "tsuke" being two. Other example words with differing syllable and mora count are: gambatte (5 morae [ga-m-ba-t-te], 3 syllables [gam-ba-tte]), and toukyou (4 morae [to-o-kyo-o], 2 syllables [tou-kyou]).

"Ai/Ei/Oi", I believe, are both two morae and two syllables in Japanese, as each vowel is properly pronounced distinctly (although rapidly) rather than as a diphthong. I cannot find an academic source confirming this, because syllables are rarely used with regard to Japanese, but it seems to be true based on the definition of a syllable. In English loanwords they are often pronounced as a diphthong and thus as a single syllable. So, Meijin is three syllables (me-i-jin) and four morae (me-i-ji-n), although it would not be wrong for an English speaker to pronounce it as two syllables (like 'may-jean') as a loanword.

Morae are more relevant to pronunciation than syllables in Japanese, so that is what I used above.

I am not a Japanese native speaker, but I've been learning the language long enough to pick up some things. (And I still have a long way to go before becoming completely fluent )

When compared to European languages, Japanese sounds more like Castilian Spanish or Greek than like English or German, especially in the vowels. However, whereas in Castilian Spanish A,O, and U are pronounced at the back of the mouth and E and I are pronounced at the front, in Japanese all the vowels are pronounced in the same general parts of the mouth as in Spanish, but closer to the middle and with less mouth movement, resulting in "softer-sounding" vowels. This is why sometimes the Japanese U will sound more like the U in French than the one in Spanish.

The pronunciation of Japanese vowels and consonants is actually much like that found in Polynesian languages such as New Zealand Maori. The vowels in Maori and in Japanese are almost a perfect match. The consonants are also closely matched in sound, but Japanese has 13 consonants and 5 vowels, versus 10 consonants and 5 vowels in Maori. In both languages, there is vowel lengthening, indicated by vowel macron when written, in which some words have a vowel held for slightly longer than normal. So, kyû ("step" or elementary grade below 1st dan) has a U sound held for a ½ second longer than the U in kyu. Kô (repeated and consecutive capture of a single stone) is different from ko (child or crumbs); the former is pronounced "koh", but as as monophthong, not as diphthong. The ei vowel is not pronounced "ay-ee", but is actually a lengthened E sound, like "eeh". Finally, in both Maori and Japanese vowels are sometimes muted to ease pronunciation when talking quickly, especially the U sound.

Japanese is not completely similar to Maori, though. The vowel patterns that occur in Japanese tend to remind me more of an Altaic language, such as Turkish or Mongolian. In fact, it's often said that Japanese has more in common with Central Asian languages than with Southeast Asian and South Pacific ones. Even Japanese grammar has a general resemblance to that of Türkic, Mongol, and Tungusic languages.

Still, just listen to this clip from TV New Zealand's Te Karere Maori-language news program and ask yourself if the consonants and vowels are similar to those of Japanese or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRP4UUIFc7g