How to Pronounce Japanese Vowels like a Native
Japanese has five vowels, a, i, u, e, o. The vowels are the same as or have very close equivalents. You can see from the two charts below that Japanese vowels are pronounced lower and more central than in English. The top chart is English vowels and the bottom one Japanese vowels.
So, as a basic rule just remember that in Japanese the vowels are ever so slightly closer together than English. For more detail continue below.
INDEX
あ
The a sound in Japanese is pronounced between [a] and [ɑ] or the a and au in the two words father and caught. In the International Phonetic Alphabet it is written as [ä̝].
Example:
い
い is basically the same as the International Phonetic Alphabet i. You would pronounce i like the letter e in English or the ee in cheese.
Example:
え
You pronounce え as e. This vowel is close to the e in words such as bed, met, or pet. In Japanese though you say it with the tongue a little higher in the mouth. In English this sound is usually short but in Japanese all syllables are the same length. So, make sure not to cut this sound short. Also be careful not to add a small i to the end of the word either like in English words such as gate, eight or aim.
Example:
お
This is the same as the English o except that it is pronounced with the tongue lower and it is not a diphthong like the equivalent sound in English. A diphthong is like a transition between two vowels sounds. So the English word low is a transition between the o sound and a u sound. The Japanese o is just the pure o sound without the u.
Example:
う
Purposely saved for last, u in Japanese is the most unique vowel. Unique in English where the equivalent u sound is made with rounded lips, う is un-rounded and instead the lips or only slightly tightened. It is also pronounced with less tension and is somewhat between oo in book and the oo in food.
Example:
Putting it All Together
The Japanese vowels are not too difficult to learn or distinguish when listening to Japanese. Unlike in English they do have a few different particularities such as becoming unvoiced in certain words, becoming longer, and becoming nasalized before certain sounds. Most of this you will learn without knowing just by listening and speaking though so it is not anything to worry about, but an interesting topic for later.
Now you know how to pronounce some vowels. If you are interested in learning Japanese I have reviewed what I consider the best resource for Japanese Grammar below:
