Help:Japanese

For Japanese words the Japanese spelling and pronunciation are given between parentheses, for example:
 * Tokyo (東京都)

Tokyo is the English spelling, 東京都 is the Japanese spelling, and Tōkyō-to is a guide for Japanese pronunciation.

Japanese orthography
Japanese text is written with a mixture of kanji and the two kana alphabets. Most kanji originate from China and generally represent meanings. 東京都 (Tōkyō-to) literally means east (東) + capital (京) + metropolis (都). The kana writing systems (called hiragana and katakana) are derived from simple kanji strokes and are used to denote sounds. する (suru, lit. to do) = す (su) + る (ru).

Japanese pronunciation
Througout Wikipedia, a revised version of the widely accepted Hepburn romanization is used to represent Japanese sounds in Roman letters. Following are some basic rules to using Hepburn to accurately pronounce Japanese words.



Vowels

 * The vowels a, e, i and o are generally pronounced as in Spanish or Italian.
 * The vowel u is similar to that in moon.
 * Japanese vowel can either be long or short. Long vowels are romanised in Hepburn using a macron.
 * Long o and u sounds are usually written with macrons as ō and ū.
 * Long e and i sounds are usually written ei and ii.

Japanese vowels can be approximated in English as follows:

Syllabic n

 * An n before a consonant is syllabic (its own syllable).
 * A syllabic n followed by a vowel or y is written n'.
 * The syllabic n has various phonetic realisations:
 * A syllabic n before a k or g is pronounced.
 * A syllabic n before an m, b or p (thus syllabic) is pronounced as it is written as m in original version of Hepburn but n in modified Hepburn.
 * A syllabic n is otherwise pronounced as.

Consonants

 * Consonants except for r are generally pronounced like in English.
 * The consonant r is generally more like the r of Spanish, but without sustained rolling of the tongue.It is similar to Korean r. To an English speaker's ears, its pronunciation lies somewhere between a flapped t (as in American English better and ladder), an l and a d.
 * Double consonants (kk, tt, etc.) basically indicate a slight, sharp pause before and stronger emphasis of the following sound, more similar to Italian than English. Exceptions:
 * double ch is written as tch,
 * double sh is written as ssh and
 * double ts is written as tts.