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Let's start with the basics. No, not hello and goodbye, I'm talking farther down than that.
You may have heard that the Japanese have two alphabets and over 2,000 kanji, but in reality, there are only 105 sounds. More simply, those are complied from 46 original sounds, all based off of 5 vowels.
No kidding.
REMEMBER:
Every letter, barring vowels and 'n', is made up of 2 letters. A consonent followed by a vowel.
If you know the vowels, "A, i, u, e, o" then you can figure out the rest just fine. But today, let's stick with vowels.
A- pronounced "ah"
I- pronounced "ee"
U- pronounced "oo"
E- pronounced "eh"
O- pronounced "oh"
Americans have huge problems mixing up I and E. You lose that confusion once you can write in japanese, but I won't be teaching that, so you're going to have to understand that E=eh and I=ee.
Let's test that! (answers at the bottom)
How do you pronounce:
1.) Sake (alochol)
2.) Karate (martial art)
3.) Iie (no)
4.) Neko (cat)
5.) Arigatou (thank you)
Answers:
1.) Sa-keh
2.) Ka-rah-teh
3.) Ee-ee-eh
4.)Neh-ko
5.) Ah-ri-ga-toe-oo
That's the beginning! Tomorrow- the rest of the alphabet.
 Kawariyasui · Sat Nov 13, 2004 @ 12:58am · 1 Comments |
