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what is a Japanese syllable? An English syllable, as noted above, is a sound or group of sounds accompanied by one of four stresses. A Japanese syllable isn’t that sort of thing at all. It’s a sound or group of sounds that take up a certain relative space of time. In other words, one of those metronome beats. A Japanese syllable may consist of a SHORT VOWEL (e ‘picture,’ o ‘tail’), or A CONSONANT + A SHORT VOWEL (te ‘hand,’ ta ‘field,’ yo ‘world’), or A CONSONANT + Y + A SHORT VOWEL (the first syllable of kyonen ‘last year’). Note that the sounds sh, ch, ts are in each case single consonants even though we write them with two letters.

      In addition, a syllable may consist of a consonant when followed by another consonant (other than y) or a pause. For example, the first k of yukkuri ‘slowly,’ the first s [a spelling abbreviation for what is really sh of irasshaimashita ‘(you) came,’ the first n of kon’nichi ‘today,’ and both instances of the n in konban ‘this evening.’ The syllabic consonants are further discussed in note 1.9.

      Finally, a syllable may consist of EITHER HALF OF A LONG VOWEL. In other words, what we write as ā, ē, ī, ō, ū are really just abbreviations for aa, ee, ii, oo, uu—two syllables each. Long vowels are further discussed in note 1.6.

      Below are some of the words occurring in the Basic Sentences, with the syllable divisions indicated by hyphens.

[cue 01-3]

はい	hai	ha-i
ちょっと	chotto	cho-t-to
おはよう	ohayō	o-ha-yo-o
こんにちは	kon’nichi wa	ko-n-ni-chi-wa
こんばんは	konban wa	ko-n-ba-n-wa
さようなら	sayōnara	sa-yo-o-na-ra

1.4. Voicing

      In the throat there are two pieces of muscular tissue that can be vibrated with a flow of air from the lungs like a couple of heavy rubber bands. They are called vocal cords. When vocal cords vibrate, we say the sound has VOICING or is VOICED. When these cords are somewhat relaxed at the sides of the throat, we say the sound is VOICELESS or UNVOICED. You can feel the vibration of the vocal cords by placing your hand on your throat. Or put your hands over your ears and you will notice a buzz whenever a sound is voiced.

      In most languages, some of the sounds are typically voiced and others are typically voiceless. For instance, in English the initial sounds of these pairs differ in that the ones on the left (k, ch, t, s, p, f, th) are voiceless, and those on the right (g, j, d, z, b, v, th) are voiced:

Voiceless	Voiced
Kay	gay
cheer	jeer
toe	dough
seal	zeal
pay	bay
fan	van
thin	then

      There are similar pairs of voiced and voiceless sounds in Japanese:

[cue 01-4]

Voiceless	Voiced
金 kin gold	銀 gin silver
血 chi blood	字 ji graphic character, letter
十 tō ten	どう dō how
そう sō so, right	象 zō elephant
パン pan bread	番 ban guard, watchman

      In English, the sounds we call VOWELS, those made without any close contact between the tongue and top of the mouth, are always voiced, unless we are softly whispering. In Japanese, vowel sounds are often unvoiced when they come between voiceless consonants. Virtually every speaker of Japanese pronounces the vowels written i and u as unvoiced between voiceless consonants, and some drop these vowels completely. At the end of a word and after a voiceless consonant, these vowels are also frequently unvoiced or dropped, so that the final syllable of ohayō gozaimasu ‘good morning’ and genki desu ‘I’m fine’ sound AS IF there were no u there at all. The other vowels, those we write a, e, and o, are usually pronounced voiced. But unaccented ka and ko at the beginning of a word are often unvoiced when followed by the same syllable: kakanai ‘does not write,’ koko ‘here.’ And ha and ho are often unvoiced when followed by a voiceless consonant and the same vowel: haka ‘grave,’ hokori ‘dust,’ and hosoi ‘slender.’

1.5. Vowels

      There is a striking difference between the way a Japanese person pronounces his vowels and the way an American pronounces his. Japanese vowels seem to stand still. English vowels often slide off from their starting points in one of three directions: with the tongue moving front and up (as in key, bay, shy, and toy); with the tongue moving back and up and the lips rounding (as in now, know, and who); with the tongue relaxing toward a central position (as in yeah, ah, law, uh, and huh; with many speakers also in bad, bed, bid, and bud; with some Southern and Western speakers also in bat, bet, bit, and butt).

      A vowel takes its characteristic color from the way the tongue, mouth, and lips are held. Vowels are often described in terms of the tongue’s position in three top-to-bottom levels (HIGH, MID, LOW) and three front-to-back positions (FRONT, CENTRAL, BACK). If we ignore the off-glides mentioned above, and think only about the points of departure, we can illustrate these positions for American vowels with such words as these:

      Note: Some speakers do not distinguish caught from cot.

      For many American speakers all nine possible positions are used. The Japanese speaker, however, fills only five of the spaces as in the following words:

[cue 01-5]

      In English, we spell the same vowel sound many different ways (dough, toe, slow, so, sew, etc.) and the same letter may indicate a number of different vowels (line, marine, inn, shirt, etc.). In Romanized Japanese, the same symbol is normally used for each occurrence of the same vowel. You should learn these symbols and the sounds they stand for, and not confuse this simple use of these letters with their many English uses. The use of the letters may be remembered as: i as in ski, e as in pet, a as in father, o as in so, u as in rhubarb.

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