Pronouncing Japanese

With no dipthongs anywhere in sight, Japanese is pretty easy to pronounce. There are 5 vowel sounds, pronounced like the Italian -

a - as in father
i - as in seek
u - as in food
e - as in egg
o - as in toe

These are combined with consonants to make the sounds of Japanese.

a, i, u, e, o
ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
sa, shi, su, se, so
ta, chi, tsu, te, to
na, ni, nu, ne, no
ha, hi, fu, he, ho
ma, mi, mu, me, mo 
ya, i, yu, e, yo
ra, ri, ru, re, ro
wa, wo, n

Some special sounds -

• tsu is like the Ts sound in Tsetse fly.
• fu is a soft non-fricative fu, almost like a who sound, with a puff of air.
• the r line is written with an r, but there is no true English-sounding r in japanese. If you say "arigato", the ri sound there is like an American "Betty" tty sound. Sort of a soft li-sounding thing. There is also no "L" either. That's why Japanese people have such trouble with their r's and l's - the sounds don't exist in their language.
• there is no yi or ye sound in japanese.
• the "wo" is sort of like uo, in sound.
• the only free-standing consonant is the n sound.