Introduction to Japanese

Japanese sounds are pretty easy to pronounce. In contrast, the Japanese

writing
system is quite complex. Sentences can be written horizontally or vertically. A
Japanese sentence can be written by combining two sets of kana phonetic
symbols,
hiragana and katakana, as well as about 2,000 kanji characters, Chinese
characters adapted to Japanese. In this chapter, you will learn the basic
Japanese
sound systems and writing systems. Japanese words are represented by
romaji
(Romanization) throughout this text.

Basic sounds
Japanese has five basic vowels:
a, which sounds like the vowel in aha
i, which sounds like the vowel in eat
u, which sounds like the vowel in boot, but without lip rounding
e, which sounds like the vowel in eight
o, which sounds like the vowel in oat
These vowels have long counterparts, which are specified by a macron above
them, as in ā, ī, ū, ē, and ō.

Most consonants in English exist or are pronounced similarly in Japanese.

However, note that r and f are quite different in Japanese than in English:
Japanese r is made by tapping the tip of the tongue behind the upper teeth
just once, like the brief flap sound tt in letter in American English.

Japanese f is pronounced by bringing the upper and lower lips close to

each other and blowing air between them gently.

Japanese has double consonants where a single consonant is preceded by a

brief abrupt pause. They are represented by two letters in romaji—for
example,
tt and ss.