The vowel pronunciations are regular. In the table below, I have included the Hiragana (the syllabary alphabet), romaji (Roman alphabet) and the English equivalent of the Japanese pronunciation.
Hiragana/Romaji/English Equivalent
あ /A/‘ea’ in heart
い /I/‘ea’ in heat
う /U/‘oo’ in hook
え /E/‘ea’ in head
お /O/‘o’ in hot
The Japanese alphabet is easy to learn, as each character is composed of a consonant (bdfghjkmnprstwyz) and a vowel (aeiou). For example, ka (か) is made up of k + a, making ka (pronounced ‘kahr’), and wa わ is made up of w + a (pronounced ‘wahr’). There are two other kana, ん (n) and っ. っ is used to double the consonant in front of it. For example, 赤っぽい (reddish) is pronounced ahr-kahr-poh-ee, with a slight pause before the p. In romaji, this would be written as akappoi.
When a dakuten (゛) is used, the consonant is pronounced softly. For example, か (ka) + ゛ = が (ga), and は (ha) + ゛ = ば (ba). When a handakuten (゜) is used, the consonant is pronounced harshly. For example, は (ha) + ゜ = ぱ (pa).
If a furigana is in front of a kana, then the last vowel of the previous kana is removed and replaced with that furigana (usually や [ya], ゆ [yu] or よ [yo]). For example, き (ki) + ゃ (ya) = きゃ (kya).
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