Something new speakers of both Japanese and English need to always keep in mind is the syllabic structures of both

languages. This is something guaranteed to cause mispronunciations and misunderstandings even when all else is understood. English is (for the most part) a "concent centric" language, with the concinents the most important factor in pronunciation. Pronunciation proceeding from concient cluster to concenent cluster, and vowel sound varying, depending on the surrounding concenents. Japanese, on the other hand, is more "vowel centric", each syllable almost always ending in a vowel. (At this time I'm only aware of 5 exceptions to this rule.) To illustrate this, let me parse the english word "McDonalds", an english word in common usage in both English and Japanese, yet one not easily recognized when spoken from Japanese to English, or back. To a native English speaker, McDonalds is a 3 syllable word "Mc" + " Don" + "alds", pronounced "Mic" + "Don" + "alds". In Japan though, the Japanese pronounce McDonalds using the direct Romanization (also known as Romanji). The direct rominzation of McDonalds is "Makudonarudosu" which sounds like "Mah" + "coo" + "don" + "ah" + "ru" + "dose" or "Mahcoodonahrudose", a doubling of the number of syllables to six! If this is unclear, look at the following chart to see how the word is transformed:

English

c Do na l do s

Japanese Mi ku Do na ru do su (The ending "u" is silent, otherwise it would have 7 syllables.)

Why you should learn written Japanese as quickly as possible

In Japanese, as I have said, the syllables are pronounced in vowel groups, with each concinent and vowel spoken. But first, let us explore the proper pronunciation of the bulk of Japanese. First, I recommend that all English speaking students of Japanese divorce themselves from the Roman (English) alphabet as quickly as possible, for two very good and practical reasons. First, the incorrect implications of the pronunciation (and meanings) of Japanese, combined with your familiarity the English system. Secondly, being able to read Japanese is superior to not being able to. As I was struggling to pronounce my first romanicized Japanese words (Romanji"), I had to deal with the fact that corresponding letters do not necessarily have corresponding sound. First, Japanese vowels are pronounced one way, and one way only. Yet the sound of english vowels are affect by the surrounding lexiconal topography (the surrounding letters). I.E. "hat" vs. "hate". Japanese has no equivalent "a" sound as in "hat", and a native speaker of it would naturally pronounce this as "haw" + "toe". This is reflected in it's romanization "hato". Similarly, the "a" sound in "hate" also does not sound like the "a" sound in Japanese, and would be naturally pronounced "haw" + "teh", but still be romanicized as "hate". So you have a lifetime of english reading and pronunciation

fighting with only a few hours of training the pronunciation of romanicized Japanese. Also, as I grasped my first few words, I realized that as I had the sound, and the meaning, I was only one step away from actually reading Japanese. Knowing the graphical representation of the sound. Don't get me wrong, Romanji is an invaluable tool in the learning process for a native English speaker, but it is also a crutch and stop-gap measure that does not allow for the proper conveyance of Japanese. Just as training wheels are used and discarded by a child learning to ride a bike, romanization gives the user a false sense of the language and facilitates mistakes that written Japanese would preclude, or make more difficult. Also, would you, after a year of study, rather be able to read at least some of the street signs, books, magazines, etc. or not? Besides, what would you think of a foreigner that, though educated and reasonably fluent in spoken English, couldn't read a lick? Do you want to be thought of as too lazy, incompetent and/or arrogant to even try to grasp the written language?

Pronouncing the vowels

So, I've told you that Japanese vowels written in Romanji don't necessarily correspond to their English equivalent, so what do they sound like? Well, there are "a", "i", "u", "e", and "o". Pronounced "ah", "EE", "oo", "eh", and "oh". "a" as in "saw" "i" as in "see" "u" as in "sue" "e" as in "bet" "o" as in "oh" or "toe" The basic concinents series are k~, s~, t~, n~, h~, m~, y~, r~, w~, and n. The "n" is a unique case, and is the only cincent that can immediately proceed another concinent. The "y" series has three incarnations, "ya" ("yah"), "yu" ("you"), and "yo" ("yo"). The "w~" has one and a half incarnations, "wa" and "wo"/"o". Think of the "wo" as having a lazy (faint) "w" sound, if you can't half pronounce it, drop the "w". (Not to worry though, "wo" is only used as a particle.) All of the underlined concinets have 5 iterations, one with each vowel, and are found only proceeding on of those five and never next to any other concinent. For instance, the "k~" series is "ka" ("kaw"), "ki" ("key"), "ku" ("koo"), "ke" ("kay"), and "ko" ("co"). All the rest of the concinent series are either modifications to the concinents I've mentioned, or combinations of the "y~" series and the rest of the alphabet. The only exceptions to the pronunciation of the combinations are "si" (as still written in some older romanizations) currently romanicized as "shi" (pronounced "she") and "tu" (also as still written in some older romanizations) currently romanicized as "tsu" (pronounced as "tSue", as in "it's Sue", but drop the "i", the space and one "s". Sort of slur it together.) Earlier I mentioned 5 exceptions that I am aware of to the syllabic pronunciation of Japanese, these are-

"N", the 3 lazy vowels, and "little tsu"

The only exceptions I am aware of at this time are [] -> "n", [] -> "su" normally pronounced "sue" but pronounced "s", [] -> "shi" normally pronounced "she" but pronounced "sh". "N" can be found proceeding a concinent anywhere, except at the beginning of a word, while I have, to the best of my recollection, only encountered the "s" and "sh" sounds at the ends of words or wordlets. Examples of would be []="is" -> r"desu" -> p"dess" and []="is it?" -> r"desuka" -> p"dehska". An example of [] "n" would be []="book" -> r"hon" -> p"hone". An example of [] "shi" would be []="hello" (phone use only) r"mushi mushi", p"moosh moosh".

"little tsu"
The most sweeping exception to the vowel centric rule is the little tsu [] and []. These have the effect of doubling the following concinent, and bringing into play a more english method of pronunciation. I struggled with this aspect for some time, until I realized that the pronunciation method altered for this. So in a word like [] -> nekko ("tree stump") I was trying to pronounce "ne kko", and was understandably stumped er.. confused. (grin) A more correct pronunciation of this would be "nek ko".