Japanese for Beginners. Learning Conversational Japanese

ā ah obāsan (grandmother) → o ba a sa n (5
syllables)
ii ee iie (no) → i i e (3 syllables)
ū oo fūsen (balloon) → fu u se n (4 syllables)
ē eh onēsan (elder sister) → o ne e sa n (5
syllables)
ō oh sōko (warehouse) → so o ko (3 syllables)
It is important to take care when pronouncing long vowels since a long
vowel can change the meaning of a word completely. For example, if obāsan is
pronounced with a short vowel instead of a long vowel, the meaning changes
from “grandmother” to “aunt.” More drastically, if a wife talks of her shujin,
she means her “husband,” but if the word is pronounced with a long vowel,
shūjin, she will end up talking about her “prisoner.” So, before pronouncing a
word, always pay attention to whether it has a short or a long vowel.
THE VOICELESS VOWEL SOUNDS
Linguists talk about two kinds of sounds in the languages we speak: “voiced”
sounds make your vocal cords vibrate, and “voiceless” sounds don’t. To
understand this idea physically, place your hand under your chin, against your
neck, over your vocal cords, then say a voiced sound like “g”. You’ll feel your
vocal cords vibrate. Now say a voiceless sound like “t”. You’ll see that the
difference is that the “g” sound is produced by vibrating the vocal cords—this
is called a voiced sound.
In Japanese, certain vowels are voiced, but there are a few that are
voiceless: 1. When the Japanese vowel i or u is used between two
voiceless consonants, namely k, p, s(sh), h(f), or t(ts), it is generally
voiceless too. And being voiceless makes the vowel very soft and difficult
to hear when spoken quickly, just as certain sounds are in English
contractions—for example, “can’t” for “cannot.”
The voiceless vowels are underlined in the following examples.
hito (person) kusuri (medicine) shitsumon (question) tsukue (desk)