Help:IPA/Japanese

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This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Japanese on Wikipedia. It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Japanese in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishing consensus on the talk page first. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between , / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Shortcut H:IPA-JAH:IPA-JA

Wikipedia key to pronunciation of Japanese

The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Japanese language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see Template:IPA and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

Examples in the charts are Japanese words transliterated according to the Hepburn romanization system.

See Japanese phonology for a more thorough discussion of the sounds of Japanese.

Consonants IPA Example English approximation Kana Romanization b ばしょ, かびん, ヴァージョン basho, kabin, vājon about bʲ びょうき byōki rebuke ç ひと, ひょう hito, hyō hue ɕ した, いっしょう shita, isshō sheep d どうも, どうどう dōmo, dōdō today dz ざぜん, あんぜん, キッズ zazen, anzen, kizzu cards dʑ じょじょ, かんじゃ, エッジ jojo, kanja, ejji jeep ɸ ふじ fuji phew! ɡ がっこう, りんご, ぎんこう gakkō, ringo, ginkō again ɡʲ きぎょう kigyō argue h ほん, はは hon, haha hat j やくしゃ, ゆず yakusha, yuzu yacht k くる, はっき kuru, hakki skate kʲ きょうかい, けっきょく kyōkai, kekkyoku skew m みかん, せんぱい, もんもん mikan, senpai, monmon much mʲ みゃく myaku mute n なっとう, かんたん nattō, kantan not ɲ にわ, こんにゃく, きんちょう niwa, konnyaku, kinchō canyon ŋ りんご, なんきょく ringo, nankyoku pink ɴ にほん nihon roughly like long p パン, たんぽぽ pan, tanpopo span pʲ はっぴょう happyō spew ɾ ろく, そら roku, sora American atom ɾʲ りょうり ryōri American party s する, さっそう suru, sassō soup t たべる, とって taberu, totte stop tɕ ちかい, けっちゃく chikai, ketchaku itchy ts つなみ, いっつい tsunami, ittsui cats w わさび wasabi roughly like was ɰ̃ ふんいき, でんわ, あんしん fun'iki, denwa, anshin rain z ざぜん, つづく zazen, tsuzuku zoo ʑ みじかい, じょじょ mijikai, jojo vision ʔ あつっ！ atsu'! uh-oh

Vowels IPA Example English approximation Kana Romanization a ある aru father e えき eki bet i いる iru meet i̥ した shita whispered meet o おに oni story ɯ うなぎ unagi shoot ɯ̥ すきやき sukiyaki whispered shoot Suprasegmentals IPA Description Example English approximation ː Long vowel hyōmei, ojiisan Southern British bared (compare bed) ꜜ Pitch drop (牡蠣, 'oyster'), (垣, 'fence') /ˈmæri/ (marry), /məˈriː/ (Marie) . Syllabification nin'i higher /ˈhaɪ.ər/

See also

• Category:Pages with Japanese IPA (1,374)

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Voiced fricatives are generally pronounced as affricates in utterance-initial positions and after the moraic nasal /N/ ( before and before ) or the sokuon /Q/ (only in loanwords). Actual realizations of these sounds vary (see Yotsugana).
2. ^ ^{a b c d} When an affricate consonant is geminated, only the closure component of it is repeated: .
3. ^ ^{a b} A declining number of speakers pronounce word-medial /ɡ/ as (Vance 2008:214), but /ɡ/ is always represented as in this system.
4. ^ The utterance-final nasal is traditionally described as uvular , but instrumental studies have found that this is inaccurate and the actual realization varies (Maekawa 2023). However, an alternative transcription has yet to be established, so ⟨ɴ⟩ is used.
5. ^ is phonetically a bilabial approximant , but it is traditionally described as a velar or labialized velar approximant and transcribed with ⟨ɰ⟩ or ⟨w⟩ (Maekawa 2020).
6. ^ The syllable-final n (moraic nasal) is pronounced as some kind of nasalized vowel before a vowel, semivowel () or fricative (). is a conventional notation that is undefined for the exact place of articulation (Vance 2008:97).
7. ^ ^{a b} Close vowels become voiceless when short and surrounded by voiceless consonants within a word. When the second consonant is , , or , or when both consonants are fricatives (including the second component of an affricate), devoicing is much less likely to occur (Fujimoto 2015), so vowels in such environments are not transcribed as voiceless (nor are word-final or non-close vowels, whose devoicing is also less consistent). Where close vowels that would be devoiced according to the above rules occur in succession, usually whichever vowel is accented is voiced; if neither is accented, the second is voiced (Fujimoto 2015:189): . These rules may be overridden by citing a reliable source that marks devoicing, such as NHK (2016) or Kindaichi & Akinaga (2014), if the word being transcribed appears in it.
8. ^ , romanized u, exhibits varying degrees of rounding depending on dialect. In Tokyo dialect, it is either unrounded or compressed , meaning the sides of the lips are held together without horizontal protrusion, unlike protruded .
9. ^ A pitch drop may occur only once per word and does not occur in all words. The mora before a pitch drop has a high pitch. When it occurs at the end of a word, the following grammatical particle has a low pitch.

References

• Fujimoto, Masako (2015). "Vowel devoicing". In Kubozono, Haruo (ed.). Handbook of Japanese Phonetics and Phonology. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 167–214. doi:10.1515/9781614511984.167. ISBN 978-1-61451-252-3.
• Kindaichi, Haruhiko; Akinaga, Kazue, eds. (2014). 新明解日本語アクセント辞典 (in Japanese) (2nd ed.). Tokyo: Sanseido. ISBN 978-4-385-13672-1.
• Maekawa, Kikuo (2020). "Remarks on Japanese /w/". ICU Working Papers in Linguistics. 10: 45–52. doi:10.34577/00004625.
• Maekawa, Kikuo (2023). "Production of the utterance-final moraic nasal in Japanese: A real-time MRI study". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 53 (1): 189–212. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000050.
• NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, ed. (2016). NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典 (in Japanese). Tokyo: NHK Publishing. ISBN 978-4-14-011345-5.
• Vance, Timothy J. (2008). The Sounds of Japanese. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-5216-1754-3.