Japanese

Vowels

The table below shows the five vowels of Japanese phonemic inventory.


ma ("interval")	me ("eye")	mi ("fruit, nut")	mo ("algae")	mu ("nothing")

Length and Accent

In Japanese, length can be contrastive for both consonants and vowels, giving the following patterns:


	kite ("come")	kite ("come")
	ki:te ("listen")	ki:te ("listen")
	kitte ("stamp")	kitte ("stamp")
	kitte ("cut")	kitte ("cut")

Note that the last two words are distinguished by their accent pattern. Japanese is usually referred to as a "pitch accent" language, so accented syllables are determined by the pitch pattern rather than by increased length or intensity.

Three-way accent contrast

("bridge")	("chopsticks")	("end")
("paint a bridge")	("paint chopsticks")	("paint the end")

Another vowel length example

Length contrast on second syllable

ozisantat^si ("uncles")	ozi:santat^si ("grandfathers")
hodo ("extent")	hodo: ("sidewalk")

Audio Source:
Illustrations of the IPA.