Japanese "kana" pronunciation

The following brief introduction to Japanese sounds is not intended to teach you to read, but rather to give you an idea of what sounds are available in Japanese.

English, and especially American, readers make pronunciation guesses based on their ABC, and those guesses are almost always wrong because Japanese writing in the so-called "romaji" alphabet is based on Latin, not English.

The good news about learning it is that, unlike English, Japanese is very consistent. Once you learn it, you will be able to read correctly for the rest of your life.

I am not saying Japanese does not have its own problems, but to keep things simple, let's focus on the vowels.

There are only five vowels, and each one makes exactly one sound every time, with no exceptions.

The five vowels:

The "a" sounds like the a in "father". It is never the "a" in "day" or the "a" in "cat".
The "i" sounds like the "i" in "machine". It is never the "i" in "ice".
The "u" sounds like the "u" in "boot". It is never the "u" in "cube".
The "e" sounds like the "e" in "bed". It is never the "e" in "me" and never the "a" in "day".
The "o" sounds like the "o" in "boat", but shorter and without letting it glide into "oo" at the end. It is never the o in "hot".

That is all you need to remember.

The long vowels

Each of the five vowels can also be long, meaning the same sound is simply held for twice as long.
The sound does not change, only its duration.
I mark a long vowel with a bar over the letter, called a macron: ā, ī, ū, ē, and ō.

The "ā" is a long "aa".
The "ī" is a long "ii".
The "ū" is a long "uu", as in the shū of Shūdōkan 修道館しゅうどうかん.
The "ē" is a long "eh".
The "ō" is a long "oh", as in "dō", the way 道どう is pronounced.

Length is not decoration. It can change the meaning of a word.
The training hall is a dōjō, 道場どうじょう, with both o sounds long.
The school is 修道館しゅうどうかん, with a long u and a long o.

Common pronunciation mistakes

Here are a few examples:

Karate is pronounced 空手からて, with the last syllable not "tee" but ending in "e", as in "energy".
It is true that the original name for Okinawan hand fighting was "tī", and it uses the same Chinese character for "hand" 手て as in karate 空手からて. However, the word "karate" is purely Japanese and should be pronounced according to Japanese standards, again, ending in "e", as in "energy".

The rice wine, or "sake", is 酒さけ, ending in "e", as in "energy", not "sa-kee".

However, "saki", meaning "point", is 先さき , ending in "i", as in "machine" and not "sa-kay".

My name, Uki, is 宇気うき, ending in "i", as in "machine", not "yoo-kay".

Japanese syllables

Every other sound in the language is a consonant placed before one of these five vowels, and the consonant does not alter the vowel.

The "ka" is "k" plus "a", pronounced like the start of the word "comma".
The "ki" is "k" plus "i", as in "key".
The "ku" is "k" plus "u", as in "cooper".
The "ke" is "k" plus "e", as in the name "Ken".
The "ko" is "k" plus "o", as in "comb".

The same pattern repeats for every other consonant.