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Well, no objections have come up, and I've got some time, so I'll put in the first lesson. Comments, questions, and complaints are welcome!

This is asumming that people reading this have little to no previous knowledge, so I'll start from the very beggining.




The pronunciation of Japanese is fairly simple compared to many other Asian languages, and has no tone distinction unlike other Asian languages like Chinese or Thai. The sounds are few, and easy enough for an english speaker to get used to.

Here are the english equivalents of the Japanese sounds, as they are when written in english letters.

Vowels, Long Vowels and Dipthongs

There are only five vowels.

A - like in father
I - meet, or the name of this letter: E
E - get, met
O - cone, similar to "Oh!"
U - moon, cool

Dont get lazy and reduce the sounds to the all to common lazy English "uuhh" sound, make every vowel clear.


If you are familiar with spanish, you should recognize those sounds. Actually, the sounds of Japanese are probably more similar to Spanish that any other. With some obvious differences though.

Dipthongs are no problem. The sounds don't blend together, just say one right after the other.

ai = a-i
ae = a-e
ue = u-e

But with a few exceptions. Japanese distinguishes vowels by length. There are "long" vowels and "short" vowels. Short vowels are prounounced normally, just say the sound one time. The only difference is, with long vowles you say it for twice the normal length of time.

Try it. Say these vowels, and say it again, holding it approximatley 2 times the normal length.

a - aa
i - ii
e - ee
o - oo
u - uu

Got that? Well there is something else. When these long vowels are written they sometimes have a "macron" (ancient greek for long) over them. But there is another way, which I prefer because it is the way it is actually written in the real Japanese script, which will come up a bit later.

The changes are:

ee = ei
oo = ou

Be sure to not mess up your pronunciation when you see these though, "ei" is not said "e-i" still "ee". Same goes for the other.


Consonants

Most of these are the same as English, with just a few differences.

H,g,b,h,k,sh,z,ch,n,p,m, and w are the same as English.

g - always like go, never as in "register"
s - mass, don't get lazy and turn it into a Z.
y - yet
f - similar to the english "f", but a bit more airy. Different books write it a s H and f, but really, it's not quite either. Just try making a more "light" or airy sounding F.

t - always like tick, never like stop
ts- cats. This sound never comes at the front of a word in English, so it may be a bit awkward at first.

n - Same as English, but in front of n,b or p becomes an "m". It also occasionally sounds more like "ng", but there is no clear rule as to when this is, and it changes depending on region, so say it like "n" if you don't know which it should be. A vague rule would be to change it to "ng" before a "g".

r - This one is the worst. It's not really an "r", it's somewhere between r,l, and d. To make this sound, tap your tounge on the ridge behing you teeth while making an r-sound. If you know Spanish, think of a Spanish "r", but without the trill. Like as if you were going to say "burro", but with one tap, not a bunch of them.

You can hear some examples of the Japanese R here:
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/readarticle.php?article_id=204
( click on the little music note )

And that basically covers pronunciation.

A few other things:

Double Consonants

This is wherw you see a "pp", "kk" "tt" or any other two consonants put together in that way. The way you say this is, after saying the first sound, freeze your vocal cords for a split second, and say it again! Somewhat like the sound in "volley ball". Pay attention to the way you say it. It actually sounde like " Volleyb-ball" with a tiny little pause. That is fairly close to the effect you want.

Be sure to be very distinct about the long vowels and double consonants. There are many similar sounding words in Japanese, and these help to distinguish them in the same way that tone is used to distinguish meaning of similar sounding words in other languages.

For example:
Kappa - Kap (small pause) pa
Itte - It (pause) te

With "ch" however, it sounds more like t-ch.
Example: kacchi - said as "kat (pause) chi"

And that basically covers pronunciation. A long and wordy guide to Japanese proninciation can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology





The way Japanese is spoken, sounds aside, is still a bit different than English in a few ways. Japanese is spoken more or less with no stress on any one syllable than any other. There is a certain stress that is used, but it is very subtle, and is different for every word. And there are no rules for it, except for memorization. So just say them all at basically the same pitch.

In Japanese one syllabe is a vowel followed by a consonant, or a single vowel. So when you say the word "tabemono" (food), dont say TA-be-MO-no, ta-BE-mo-no, Ta-Be-MO-No, or any other combination of that. Just a nice, smooth, "ta-be-mo-no".


So in conclusion, double your vowels, elongate your consonants, don't go up and down in you voice at strange times, and be sure to say every syllabe clearly, and you should be understood.

終わりました。（ Finished )



If I left anything out or made any mistakes, feel free to correct them.

If there are no objections, I'll continue with writing and some basic grammar tomorrow or so. Any questions, comments, or complaints are welcome! Just don't be too harsh... sweatdrop

Not very crowded in here. sweatdrop

That's what I'll deal with next. The problem is, Japanese has one of the most complex writing systems in the world, except for maybe Chinese. I'll explain the writing system, and for the next few lessons write examples in English letters and Japanese. Depending on how things go, later switch to just one or the other. Do you have a preference?

Okay then...


The Japanese writing system, unfortunatley, is one of the most complicated ones you will find. There are three "alphabets" for lack of a better word. Two of them are phonetic, using "letters" like the English alphabet, Hiragana and Katakana. The third and most troublesome is made up of symbols that each have a meaning and several ways to be pronounced, called "Kanji".





These are the two phonetic alphabets of the language. Each "letter" is a combination of a consonant followed by a vowel, or a vowel on its own. The only consonant that can come ant the end of a word is N. I will give the pronounciation of the Japanese symbol in english letters next to it. Use the pronunciation guide above to make sure you are saying them correctly, don't just assume based on what you know of English, because more than likely, you'll be wrong.




First, hiragana. This is the alphabet consists of 80-90% of the characters used in Japanese writing. They are used to write whole words that don't have or are not usually written in Kanji, and ends or conjugations of words. They are all smooth and curvy, compared to the straight and angular Katakana.
I would recommend learning these Hiragana first, because you will immediatley be able to read 80% of any Japanese text, and will quickly be able to start learning words.


So then, Vowels

あ - a
い - i
う - u
え - e
お - o

And their long counterparts...

ああ　- aa
いい - ii
うう - uu
えい - written as "ei",but said as "ee"
おう - written as "ou", said as "oo"

Consonants

か - ka　　さ - sa　　た - ta　　な - na　　は - ha　　ま - ma　　ら - ra　　や - ya　　
き - ki　　し - shi　　ち - chi　　に - ni　　　ひ - hi　　み - mi　　り - ri　　　ゆ - yu
く - ku　　す - su　　つ - tsu　　ぬ - nu　　ふ - fu　　む - mu　　る - ru　　よ - yo
け - ke　　せ - se　　て - te　　ね - ne　　へ - he　　め - me　　れ - re　　わ - wa
こ - ko　　そ - so　　 と - to　　の - no　　ほ - ho　　も - mo　　ろ - ro　　を - (w)o

ん - n

Voiced Consonants- These are just some of the ones from above, with a little '' in the corner to show the sound change. They are pretty predictable if you think about it.

が - ga　　ざ - za　　だ - da　　ば - ba　　ぱ - pa
ぎ - gi　　じ - ji　　　　　　　　　　び - bi　　ぴ - pi
ぐ - gu　　ず - zu　　　　　　　　　ぶ - bu　　ぷ - pu
げ - ge　　ぜ - ze　　で - de　　べ - be　　ぺ - pe
ご -go　　ぞ - zo　　ど - do　　ぼ - bo　　ぽ - po

The rest are combinations of the ones above with a small や、ゆ、or よ placed in the corner.

きゃ - kya　　きゅ - kyu　　きょ - kyo
しゃ - sha　　しゅ - shu　　しょ - sho
ちゃ - cha　　ちゅ - chu　　ちょ - cho
にゃ - nya　　にゅ - nyu　　にょ - nyo
ひゃ - hya　　ひゅ - hyu　　ひょ - hyo
みゃ - mya　　みゅ - myu　みょ - myo
りゃ - rya　　　りゅ - ryu　　りょ - ryo
ぎゃ - gya　　ぎゅ - gyu　　ぎょ - gyo
じゃ - ja　　　じゅ - ju　　　　じょ - jo
びゃ - bya　　びゅ - byu　　びょ - byo
ぴゃ - pya　　ぴゅ - pyu　　ぴょ - pyo


Long Vowels and Double Consonants


To continue the vowel at the end of the syllable, just write it again, keeping in mind the exceptions noted above.

かあ - kaa
きい - kii
くう - kuu
けい - kei, say "kee"
こう - kou, say "koo"

To make the double consonant, you use a small "tsu"（つ） at the end of the syllable.

かった - katta ( won, bought)
まっちゃ - maccha ( powdered tea )
よろっぱあ - yoroppaa ( europe )


And thats about it. Since my font is a bit small, go here for a bigger look at them in case you want to write them down.
http://www.kanjisite.com/html/start/kana/index.html

Tomorrow, Katakana.

終わり。

Yeah, that's it. After seeing a few examples you'll get it. For a while, I'll write all the examples in english letters and Japanese so you can get used to it.

If the word is "chikyuuondanka", just break it up an replace the bits with the right Japanese symbol.

So, chi-kyu-u-on-dan-ka =　ちきゅうおんだんか。

He, thanks. Without some sign that somebody is actually reading this, there would be no reason to keep doing it.

Good then. Don't hesitate to ask any questions. If you learn something wrong by mistake, it is a huuuge pain to fix it later on.

Yes, thats true, good point. I thought that "alphabet" might be more understandable. The majority of people I have met have no idea what the word "syllabary" means. So, I thought 'alphabet' would be a good way to good way to get the idea across.