back. Many Japanese round their lips very little, however, and you will probably notice that the Japanese u involves less of this lip-rounding than the American equivalent. (Actually, much of the American lip-rounding is part of the off-glide.) After the consonants s, ts, and z, the Japanese u is sometimes pronounced in a HIGH CENTRAL position.
[cue 01-6]
進む susumu
advances
車 kuruma
car
靴 kutsu
shoes
続く tsuzuku
continues
盗む nusumu
steals, swipes
牛乳 gyūnyū
milk
In ordinary conversation when the Japanese syllable u comes before ma, me, or mo, it is often pronounced as if it were the syllable m:
[cue 01-7]
馬 uma [mma]
horse
梅 ume [mme]
plum
埋もれ木 umoregi [mmoregi]
fossil wood
Notice that Japanese does not utilize the MID CENTRAL position on the vowel chart. This is one of the most common of English vowels; it is sometimes indicated by the phonetic symbol ə (the schwa or ‘inverted e’). For many English speakers, this is the most common vowel in weak-stressed syllables; so the American who forgets that Japanese has no weak-stressed syllables tends to replace various Japanese vowels with this relaxed central vowel. For anata ‘you,’ many Americans will say anata, overstressing the syllable na and sliding over the other syllables. Be careful to avoid weak stresses, and you will not confuse the Japanese with this mid-central vowel.
1.6. Vowels in sequence
In Japanese, any vowel may be followed by any other vowel. Each is pronounced in a short, clear, evenly stressed fashion. Here are some examples of vowel sequences:
[cue 01-8]
はい hai
yes
家 ie
house
上 ue
top
甥 oi
nephew
青い aoi
is blue
Note that there is a syllable, an even space of time, for each vowel: ha-i, i-e, u-e, o-i, a-o-i.
Now, in English we do not have vowels in sequence. Each vowel is followed either by a consonant or by one of those three off-glides mentioned in 1.5: the y-glide in key, bay, by, and boy; the w-glide in now, know, and new; the h-glide in ah, yeah, law, and huh. When we Americans hear a Japanese vowel sequence, we are apt to reinterpret this as one of our combinations of vowel + glide. We hear Japanese hai like English high and Japanese mae like English my. The difficulty is that English high and my rhyme, but Japanese hai and mae do not. The following chart will give you an idea of the difference in pronunciation between the two English words on the one hand and each of the Japanese words on the other:
Note that there are some Tokyo speakers who do sound their ai’s much like their ae’s. Such speakers rhyme the words kaeru ‘return’ and hairu ‘enter.’ Speakers of Standard Japanese, however, try to keep these sequences distinct.
Just as we hear Japanese ai and ae alike, we tend to hear Japanese au and ao the same. Listen carefully to the difference between these pairs:
[cue 01-9]
買う kau
buys
会う au
meets
顔 kao
face
青 ao
blue
Do kau and au seem to sound like English cow? Do kao and ao seem to sound like English ow? The following chart will give you an idea of the difference in pronunciation. As you can see, this chart is a mirror image of the one above.
Since any vowel can follow any other vowel in Japanese, it is natural that a vowel can follow itself. These double vowels are sometimes called LONG VOWELS because, being two syllables, they take twice as long to pronounce as the short ones. In the Hepburn Romanization of Japanese, which this book uses, the double vowels are usually written with a macron (-) over the simple vowel, except in the case where there is a morphological boundary, as in oishi-i ‘delicious.’ Instead of a macron, some people use a circumflex accent ( ^ —like a small inverted V).
It is extremely important to master the difference between the short (simple) vowels and the long (double) ones early in your study of Japanese. So many words are distinguished by vowel length alone that, unless you are careful with these distinctions, your Japanese will be like a faulty telephone connection, likely to break down at any moment. English vowels are neither long nor short, by Japanese standards, but they often SOUND long, because of the off-glides. Remember to make your SHORT vowels SHORTER and your LONG vowels LONGER than the equivalent English vowels. Here are some examples of long and short vowels:
[cue 01-10]
田 ta
field
さあ sā [sa-a]
well
絵 e
picture
ええ ē [e-e]
yes
木 ki
tree
いい ii [i-i]
is good
帆 ho
sail
法 hō [ho-o]
law
府 fu
metropolitan prefecture
封 fū [fu-u]
seal
In ordinary conversation, most Japanese do not distinguish the vowel sequence ei from ee (=ē). In some parts of Japan, however, the distinction is still maintained. To an American ear, both sequences sound about like the vowel in bay. You should practice making the ē sound clear and long without the off-glide of the equivalent English sound. Examples:
