5 basic vowels, 9 simple consonants, Voiced consonants, Hiragana table, Basic greetings

1. Japanese Lesson for Beginners
Session 2
20.Oct.2014
Kana Shimohigoshi
kshimo@essex.ac.uk

2. Introduction
- Japanese Phonetics
- 5 Basic Vowels, 9 simple consonants
- Voiced Consonants and ‘P’
- Basic Greetings

3. Understanding Japanese Phonetics
- Need to understand how Japanese sounds are
represented using Roman letters (romaji)
- Japanese has 5 basic vowels (a,i,u,e,o) and 9 basic
consonants (k,s,t,n,h,m,y,r,w)
- A syllable is usually consist of a consonant and a
vowel
(e.g. a syllable かis consist of a consonant ‘k’
and a vowel ‘a’, we speak a syllable ‘ka’)

4. 5 Basic Vowels
Roman Letter
a
i
u
e
o
Sounds like
ah as in father
ee as in see
oo as in zoo
eh as in men
oh as in boat
Examples
akai (red)
isu (chair)
uma (horse)
eiga (cinema)
otoko (man)

5. Hiragana Table

6. Activity; Romanize Japanese
1. にほん2. せいと
3. せかい4． ほん
5． つくえ6． いす
7． ねこ8． いぬ
9． きりん10． らいおん

7. Activity; Romanize Japanese
1. nihon (Japan) 2. seito (student)
3. sekai (world) 4. hon (book)
5. tsukue (desk) 6. isu (chair)
7. neko (cat) 8. inu (dog)
9. kirin (giraffe) 10. raion (lion)

8. Double/Long Vowels
- The meaning of Japanese words can change
by the length of the syllables in the word
Roman Letter
ie
iie
obasan
obaasan
Meanings
house
no
aunt
grandmother

9. Derivative Letters
- Adding marks to make a letter sound
differently
- Adding two marks (“ten ten”) makes K,S,T or
H sounds to G,Z,D or B sounds
- Adding a small circle (“maru”) makes H sound
to P sound.

10. Voiced Consonants and ‘P’
GA
GU
GE
DA ZA
PA BA
PI
BI
PU
PE
PO
BU
BE
BO
JI
JI
GI
DZI
ZU
ZU
DZU
DE
ZE
DO ZO
GO

11. Activity; Basic Greetings
Romanized Japanese
1. konnichiwa
2. ohayou
3. konbanwa
4. arigatou
5. sayounara
6. hajimemashite
Meanings
1. Hello
2. Good morning
3. Good evening
4. Thank you
5. Good bye
6. Nice to meet you

12. Practice the Sound of Japanese
- Watching movies, TV programms and anime
- Youtube, Karaoke
- Practice writing hiragana following lyrics
you can find your favourite J-pop lyrics here!
http://www.jpopasia.com/