[shinkamalei]

i agree

[Demonskid]

I gotta start studying again xp my summer studying was a fail

[shinkamalei]

lolol i know the feeling.
and omg!
ur avi is so.. DECORATED o.o

[Demonskid]

Haha xD yea it was.

I need to find my notes xp

I have an account on JapanesePod101.com now.. I had gotten a month free of the premium trial and Downloaded all I could (27+GB of stuff) So i have lessons upon lessons of stuff :3

Thanks to the site and their Pod Casts.. with in 2 weeks I have learned 30 Higarana! :D I have been studying hard during my breaks between cleaning the apartment *o*

I am also learning a bit about sentance structure! this place really makes things easy x3 I have all their lessons up to date so I'll be studying hard


AND I am getting a white board for xMas! so i can practice my Kana and Kanji with out wasting paper! x3

[Demonskid]

Beginner Lesson: Japanese Pronunciation Series #1 - Basic 46 Sounds
from JapanesePod101!

Japanese Pronunciation Series #1 - Basic 46 Sounds

In this lesson, we will introduce you to the vowels and some of the syllables that make up the Japanese language.
Introduction

Before we get into the pronunciation, let's first review how Japanese sounds work. Japanese has a relatively small set of sounds compared with other languages, with only fourteen consonants (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, and p) and 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, and u). In Japanese, there are no such words as the English word "strength," which has clusters of three or more consonants. Japanese is made up of syllables, which are made up of a consonant and a vowel. The only exceptions are the vowels and the "n" sound, which stands alone.
Vowels

First we will go over Japanese vowels, which is one of the easiest areas of pronunciation. English has the same five vowels as Japanese (a, e, i, o, and u), but if you consider all of the ways you can pronounce English vowels, you end up with twenty different sounds! In Japanese, the sounds that the vowels make do not change. They sound very similar to the vowels found in Spanish or Italian. Let's take a look at them:

a - pronounced "ah," like the "a" in "father"
e - pronounced "eh," like the "e" in "net"
i* - pronounced "ee," like the "ee" in "meet"*
o - pronounced "oh," like the first part of the "o" sound in "so"
u - pronounced "oo," like the "oo" in "mood," but with the lips less rounded*

*Devoicing
There is one small exception for the pronunciations of "i" and "u" that we will call devoicing. That means that they become almost "whispered." This happens when these vowels come between two of the voiceless consonants: p, t, k, s, or h. For example, in words like shika ("deer") and hiku ("to pull"), the "i" sound is almost inaudible. This regularly occurs at the ends of the grammatical endings desu and masu as well, which are pronounced [dess] and [mahs], respectively.
Consonants

As we mentioned before, Japanese has the following set of fourteen consonants: k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, and p. Each one is paired with a vowel to create a syllable. In this lesson, we will cover consonants "k" through "w."
KA - か
KI - き
KU - く
KE - け
KO - こ


We pronounce the "k" syllables the same as in English.
SA - さ
SHI - し
SU - す
SE - せ
SO - そ


Note how si becomes shi. We pronounce the "s" syllables the same as in English.
TA - た
CHI - ち
TSU - つ
TE - て
TO - と



Note how ti becomes chi and tu becomes tsu. We pronounce most "t" syllables the same as in English, with the exception of tsu. While this sound does exist in English, it never comes at the beginning of a word as it often does in Japanese. This sound is the same as the "ts" in the word "cats." Try saying "cats" without the "ca" to make this sound.
NA - な
NI - に
NU - ぬ
NE - ね
NO - の


We pronounce the "n" syllables the same as in English.
HA - は
HI - ひ
FU - ふ
HE - へ
HO - ほ


Note how hu becomes fu. We pronounce most "h" syllables the same as in English, with the exception of fu. The "f" sound in Japanese is a lot lighter than in English. When making this sound, blow air between the lips, and not between the lips and teeth. Imagine this sound as being a combination of both "h" and "f."
We pronounce the characters は and へ as "wa" and "e" when used as particles. Refer to the paragraph below for more information.
*
MA - ま
MI - み
MU - む
ME - め
MO - も


We pronounce the "m" syllables the same as in English.
YA - や
YU - ゆ
YO - よ


We pronounce the "y" syllables the same as in English. Note that there are no "yi" and "ye" sounds in modern Japanese.
RA - ら
RI - り
RU - る
RE - れ
RO - ろ


When you make an "r" sound in English, you roll your tongue, but it doesn't touch the roof of your mouth. In Japanese, however, you lightly tap the roof of your mouth with your tongue to create an "r" sound. It is similar to a rolling "r," except that it is only done once. It might be easier to make this sound if you think of it like making a light "d" sound. For example, to correctly pronounce the Japanese name Eri, try saying the name "Eddy" quickly and you will get a sound that comes very close to the Japanese "r."

WA - わ
WO - を


We pronounce the "w" in wa the same as in English, but we pronounce wo simply as "o" in Japanese.
N - ん


The pronunciation of the "n" changes slightly depending on what kind of sound comes after it. Before "b," "p," and "m," it sounds more like an "m," as in shimbun ("newspaper"). Before "k" or "g," it sounds like "ng," as in genki ("energetic"). However, these differences are so slight that most Japanese people aren't even aware of them, so do not worry too much about trying to remember these rules. These sound changes occur naturally as you pronounce these words, but if you pronounce them a bit differently, people will still understand you.
*
Pronunciation of Particles
There are a few exceptions when it comes to pronunciation that are important to remember. The topic particle wa and direction particle e are written using characters that are different from their pronunciation.
Particle ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Written as... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pronounced as...
Topic Particle "wa" ~ ~ ~ は (literally, "ha") ~ ~ ~ ~ わ (wa)
Direction Particle "e" ~ ~ ~ へ (literally, "he") ~ ~ ~ ~ え (e)

:3 this is from my stuff among JapanesePod101

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Wow. I read the first part of that and was able to follow the vowel sounds you had posted. A little lost for the rest. I've only encountered Japanese that uses the Roman alphabet. Never characters.

[Demonskid]

Yea that was where I started.. the Romaji version x.x and that never helped me read the doujinshi from aarinfantasy ;o;

Everyone told me that I should learn the Kana. Hiragana is one of the Kana :3 I still have to learn the katakana x.x, *falls over*

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Ah. I think I might start with basic Roman stuff so get some of the spoken language down. Though my best learning is by writing and reading. I don't remember a heck of a lot of my Swedish vocab as far as speaking, but I can still read it well enough given what we covered in class. Most of the Japanese terms I remember I associate with a picture in my head of where I read it.

[Demonskid]

Well there is a bunch of stuffs on the front with the Romaji ^-^ that and you can ignore the Kana characters and watch for the Romaji version ^-^

It helps with sound <3

[Quiet Man Cometh]

mm. It appears so far from what I've seen that most of the sounds follow the sounds that English uses which makes it handy. Gets a little strange when one language uses a letter to represent a sound entirely different from what another language uses it for.

[Demonskid]

hana はな　花　flower
ｍｏｒｉ　もり　森 forest


;-; i am getting lost with the rest of the hiragana.. K row turns to G x.x

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Those are different types of kana there? And 'mori' is forest?

[Demonskid]

yes mori is forest :3

And yes.. there are lots of kana :3

OH! http://www.learn-japanese.info/indexw.html
is a good site for vocab words ^-^



Hiragana (Half of the Kana)


Katakana (Other Half of the Kana)



.. then there are the the ones like Nya Nyu Nyo Pya Pyu Pyo Mya Myu Myo =w=, these are hard to remember the hiragana for..

[Lucid:]

to write the ones like Nya Nyu Nyo Pya Pyu Pyo Mya Myu Myo, you just use the regular Na Nu No Pa Pu Po et cetera, and add the corresponding Ya Yu Yo character after it, slightly smaller.

Also, pronunciation usually turns out better if you learn the hiragana and read from that because you don't have any preconceived ideas about how each character should sound, whereas when reading from romanji it's easy to pronounce each letter as it should be in English or another language.

[Demonskid]

Actually according to my kana cards and my kana lessons you use..

Ni+ ya,yu,yo depending on what one you want owo

nya nyu nyo

ni+ya ni+yu ni+yo owo

mi+ya mi+yu mi+yo

I'm ready to start on katakana! x3


Japanese pod 101 helps with pronoucniation

REAL japanese people teaching japanese xD

[Lucid:]

is it ni? hm. It's been a while since I did any Japanese. clearly my mind is failing me! D: