Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Japanese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [vowels]

母音. The Japanese language has five vowels: a i u e o.

See also

31 questions
54
votes
1 answer

What are the rules regarding "mute vowels" ("u" after "s" and "i" after "sh")?

When you first begin to learn Japanese you are taught that Japanese has no stress and each syllable should be pronounced equally. You also learn that certain vowels are not pronounced, or only pronounced very slightly, such as the "u" in "desu" and…
hippietrail
  • 15,025
  • 29
  • 94
  • 143
23
votes
3 answers

How 「えい」 should be pronounced in the words like 英語, 先生, etc?

P.S.: I heard that 「生」 (せい) in the word 先生 can be pronounced either as [sei] or as [see]. If it is so, is there any semantic difference between these variants?
nikkou
  • 587
  • 3
  • 10
21
votes
4 answers

Pronunciation of す in です and the end of ます verbs

I've always been curious about the pronunciation of the す in です and at the end of 〜ます verbs. Most commonly the "u" sound is inaudible, but sometimes by some people it's more pronounced, and some people really go for it. Does it vary by age group,…
ジョン
  • 4,380
  • 1
  • 28
  • 48
17
votes
3 answers

Actual phonetic realization of "devoiced" vowels

Descriptions of Japanese phonology (such as Wikipedia's) usually describe high vowels between voiceless consonants (or word-finally) as "devoiced". For example, the pronunciation of ⟨圧⟩ 'pressure' and ⟨悲観⟩ 'pessimism' are described as: /aꜜtu/ →…
Mechanical snail
  • 994
  • 7
  • 23
12
votes
3 answers

Japanese 'え' sound - [ɛ] or [e]?

OK, this has been driving me nuts. My friend and I have been learning Japanese off and on for many years, though neither of us are fluent. We got into an argument about the pronunciation of 'え'. My textbooks said it was an English "short e" as in…
ClaireDeLune
  • 121
  • 3
9
votes
3 answers

Is it true that all Japanese words end in a vowel when transliterated to English?

First off I know zero Japanese, so sorry if this is a stupid question. I seem to remember hearing a while back that all Japanese words, when transliterated to the Latin alphabet, will end in a vowel. From the few Japanese words/names I've seen…
Abe Miessler
  • 201
  • 1
  • 2
  • 6
7
votes
1 answer

Does any Japanese dialect use the schwa?

Pronunciation of [ə] is notoriously difficult for Japanese speakers, and while trying to communicate its importance in languages such as English and French, I started to wonder: do any dialects of Japanese employ the schwa, or some approximation of…
Colin Stark
  • 345
  • 1
  • 9
6
votes
1 answer

Does the ー represent a double vowel or a long vowel sound?

For words like パーティー (party), I know ー is doubling the ア and イ. But for a word like センセイ (and let's assume for the sake of argument that it is regularly spelled in katakana), would it be センセイ or センセー ?
dotnetN00b
  • 6,686
  • 7
  • 52
  • 94
5
votes
2 answers

Open /o/ and closed /e/ - what are these allophones?

Some speakers, mainly middle-aged and older males, sometimes pronounce ねえ as [ne:], i.e. with a more closed variant of the usual /e/-sound, let's call it [ɛ]. There are also speakers for the same approximate group who sometimes pronounce そう as…
dainichi
  • 13,348
  • 1
  • 26
  • 57
5
votes
1 answer

Does おお sound different from おう?

I know おう sounds like a long o, but does おお sound the same, or should it be pronounced differently?
Dan Hulme
  • 269
  • 4
  • 14
4
votes
1 answer

い Pronunciations

I've wondered this for a while now but never thought to ask it until now. With regards to the い sound in Japanese, I understand that it's pronounced like a sort of shorter version of the e sound in "eat" or "free". Despite this, in words where…
Genzou
  • 47
  • 5
4
votes
2 answers

Pronouncing ない as ねい / ねえ (also ~oi to ~ei)

I noticed that in anime and other Japanese shows, people often pronounce 「ない」 as 「ねい」. For example, instead of saying 「使わない」, the person will say 「使わねい」, but the translation is the same. I have many questions about this. Is there any nuanced…
BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
  • 556
  • 1
  • 5
  • 19
3
votes
1 answer

Is the japanese あ ever [ɐ] instead of [a]?

So, both those vowels are very similar, the only difference being that [a] is made when the mouth is fully open while [ɐ] is near-open. Both those sounds exist in my language (Brazilian Portuguese), so I'm a little confused because while normally I…
Gabriel Coelho
  • 31
  • 4
3
votes
1 answer

Old Japanese vowels in kana

The modern Japanese vowels /e,o/ each represent two Old Japanese vowels, arbitrarily written e ë o ö in romaji. I assume that Japanese philologists don't all use romaji, so is there a convention for distinguishing these vowels in kana?
Anton Sherwood
  • 133
  • 4
3
votes
3 answers

pronunciation, dialects/background: わたす、すた？

I was watching a few episodes of the anime for 魔法遣いに大切なこと and I couldn't help but notice that the main character, a girl from 岩手県 in this story, pronounced some words containing し as though they contained す instead, such as 私｛わたし｝ being pronounced…
psosuna
  • 4,388
  • 7
  • 22
1
2 3