ILOCOS SUR COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Quirino Stadium, Zone V, Bantay, ISCC Barangay Demo

Ilocos Sur, Philippines 2727 Farm Campus
e-mail address: Barangay Labnig, San
isccbantay@yahoo.com Juan, Ilocos Sur

NIPPONGO 1

Prepared by: ELIZABETH B. RAGUINI

LESSON 1
 INTRODUCTION TO JAPANESE LANGUAGE

Facts about Japan:

Japan – “Land of the Rising Sun”
- Known to the Western world as “Jhiphen” - the Chinese
pronunciation of the characters used officially by the old
Japanese Imperial Court.
- The home of the longest reigning imperial dynasty and one of the
few nations never conquered by foreign power.
- A country occupying a crescent-shape archipelago.
- Land of volcanoes and mountainous terrain with no wide plains.

NIHONGO – a language made with 2 parts Nihon and Go.

- “Language of Japan” or “Japanese Language”
Nihon –is the Japanese language for Japan
Go – is a suffix added after the name of a country to mean “the language
of” that country.

WRITING SYSTEM OF JAPAN

1. HIRAGANA – used for native Japanese words, grammatical and function
words, particles
- The cursive script that is one of two sets symbols of Japanese syllabic
writing and has flowing lines character.
- The first script learned in Japanese language education.
- Has 46 characters: each character is a syllable made up of a vowel or a
combination of vowel and a consonant.

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 2. KATAKANA – used for borrowed words from other languages (except
Chinese) and the names of foreign persons and geographical places that
cannot be written in Kanji.
- Characters are sharp and has angular lines.
- Learned after hiragana

3. KANJI – Chinese origin characters that have been adapted to the Japanese
language.
- Are ideograms, i.e. each character has its own meaning and
corresponds to a word.
- Has complex characters.

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GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION
Before we continue, we need to know how to read the Latinized Japanese
which differs from English. Below are some guides in the correct
pronunciation of Japanese.
A as A in Africa
B as B in Baby
D as D in Dance
E as E in Elect
F as F in Fan
G as G in Goal
H as H in Hand
I as I in Imitate
J as J in Japan
K as K in King
M as M in May
N as N in Negro
O as O in October
P as P in Paper
R as R in Rooster
S as S in Sister
T as T in Tomato
U as U in Ultra
W as W in Wagon
Y as Y in Yes
Z as Z in Zipper
CH as CH in Cherry
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SH as SH in Ship
TS as TS in Ants

BASIC RULES IN PROPER PRONUNCIATION

Pronunciations of Japanese words are syllabic like Tagalog.

Filipino Syllabary Chart

a b k da e g ha i *l m n ng p r s t u w ya
a a a a a a a a a a a a

- b k de - g he - *l m n - p r s t - w *y
e e e e e e e e e e e e

- bi ki di - gi hi - *li mi ni ng pi ri *s ti - w -
i i i

- b k do - g ho - *l m n ng p ri s t - - yo
o o o o o o o o o o

- b k *d - g *h - *l m n ng p r s t - - yu
u u u u u u u u u u u u u

(*) non-existence in Japanese.

Japanese Syllabary Chart

a i u e o

ka ki ku ke ko

sa *shi su se so

ta chi(ti) *tsu te to

na ni nu ne no

ha hi *fu he ho

ma mi mu me mo

ya I yu e yo

ra ri ru re ro

wa wi u we wo

ga gi gu ge go

*za ji *zu *ze zo

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 da *ji (di) *zu de do

ba bi bu be bo

*fa fi *fu *fe fo

pa pi pu pe po

(*) non-existence in Filipino.

 STRESS
To all intents and purposes there is no stress in Japanese. So give
the same value to all syllables.

Example: “Yo-ko-ha-ma” not “Yo-ko-HAR-ma”

 VOWELS
There are only five vowel sounds in Japanese:

A as in ‘part’ (but shorter)

I as in ‘peat’ (but shorter)
U as in ‘put’
E as in ‘pet’
O as in ‘port’ (but shorter)

Remember that there are no silent letters. S when “e”, for example,
comes at the end of the word it must be pronounced: ‘are’ is “ah-reh” (not
are “are” in English).
A bar line over a vowel indicates that the vowel is twice as long as one
without a bar line. Distinguish carefully between ‘oba-san’ (aunt) and
‘obā-san’ / ‘obaa-san’ (grandmother).
Vowels often appear in combination, but always retain their basic sounds:
Ai sounds like ‘eye’
Ae sounds like ‘ah-eh’
Ei sounds like ‘ay’ of pay in English.
Elongation of vowel sounds and double consonant sounds. The reason that
makes these important is basically the fact that the meaning of the word
depends on them.
Shu sort, kind, type
Shū (shuu) week
Shoken one’s opinion (view)
Shokken meal ticket

ā or aa
ī or ii
ū or uu
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é or ee
ō or oo

 CONSONANTS
G as in ‘go’
J as in ‘jar’
Y as in ‘yet’
Note that ‘y’ is never a long ‘I’ sound. For example, the ‘kyu’ is like the
‘cu’ of “cute” and never the ‘ki’ of “kite”.
The letter ‘r’ can sound like an ‘l’ or even a ‘d’. Although an English-type
‘r’ is acceptable, it will sound nearer the mark if you tap the tip of your
tongue against the ridge behind your upper teeth.
Double consonants, like double vowels, are an important feature of
Japanese and have been hyphened in this module to remind the reader to
keep them double. The difference between the ‘n’ of ‘ana” (hole) and “an-
na” (that kind of) is like the difference between the ‘n’ of “benefits”and
“Ben Nevis”. The same applies to hyphenation at the end of the word, for
example “kip-p”, in such cases, hold the sound momentarily, then release
the sound with its full value (don’t swallow the “-p”).

 “HU” = “FU”
Example: Hutari Futari

“SI”
“N” before “P”, “B”, “M” sounds like “M” (umpire).
“T” before the word “I” pronounced by making a sound halfway
between “CH” and “TY”.
“Z” before any of the vowel is pronounce as “J” (jeep).
“U” found at the end of a word is usually NOT pronounced.
“Deshita” is pronounced as “Desh ‘ta”.
“N” ending in Japanese (like “pan”, “son”) is considered as a
separate consonant so that “son” is considered as two syllables “so”
and “n”.
Accent is only on two levels, high or low. The student must not
speak Japanese musically in several pitches or tonal levels, but
rather, not only on two planes, two notes, low-high, low-low, or high-
low on a certain level of syllable.

Example: Hashi (low-high) – bridge

Hashi (high-low) – chopstick

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