The Commissar wrote:Juno wrote:Guys, it's all so easy really:
A's as in mass.
E's as in mess.
I's as the double e in tee.
O's as in moss.
U's as the double o in too.
Every vowel is pronounced except the group "ou" which stands for a long o.
... amirite?
Correct. It uses Latin vowel pronunciation, except its much faster.
partially. It actually does use Latin pronunciation, which made learning Japanese very easy for me since my high school offered Latin.
however, the correct vowels would be
A is the same sound as p
ast
a
I is the same sound as m
e
U is the same sound as f
ood
E is a little tricky - st
ep is passable (people will understand you), but the actual sound is closer to the English "hay" than it is to "heh" imo
O is the same sound as l
ow
The reason you see "ou" being a long o is due to how the Japanese treat two vowels next to each other. For example, in English, you can tell the difference between Santa Claus' "ho ho ho" laugh and the word "hoe" when you hear it. The laugh ho is short, while hoe is held longer. This sort of difference in how the long the vowels are held happens a lot in Japanese, and it often can change the meaning of the word. Usually they just put two vowels next to each other (haa/hii/huu), but when a long O comes at the end of a word, it's not usually spelled hoo. Instead, it's spelled hou. However, at the beginnings of words you'll usually find things spelled with two o's.
In short:
Ho/hoe
Ho/hou
