Does Japanese language only have the open syllables?

Japanese people tend to speak English like “I can’to speaku Englishu.(ai kyanto spiiku ingurishu)”

This is because their language mostly has the open syllable, which is a type of syllable that ends with a vowel. They rarely have opportunities to pronounce without vowels.

Today, let me tell you about the pronunciation of Japanese language.

Open syllables and closed syllables

There are many types of syllables, but let’s use only open syllables and closed syllables here.

In English, we use both of them to have the conversation. On the other hand, in Japanese, there are few closed syllables in the conversation.

For example, “教科書 (kyo / ka / sho)” means textbook and it has three syllables. All the syllables end with vowels.

On the other hand, in English, we pronounce “text / book” and it has two syllables. Both syllables end with consonants.

Like this, Japanese people are not used to pronounce only with consonant.

However, these days they also use closed syllables unconsciously. The easiest example is “ネクタイ(nekutai, tie).”

It is “ne / ku / tai” if we think of the syllable, but actually many of them pronounce “nek / tai.” They pronounce it even without “u” sound.

In the Kansai dialect, some still pronounce “ne / ku / tai.”

Syllable and Mora

You may not familiar with the term “Mora”, but it’s really important to understand it to learn Japanese.

This is because Japanese people usually don’t use syllables but morae to think of the words.

For example, “お父さん(otousan, father)” has three syllables, “o / tou / san.”

Instead, Japanese recognize the word as “o / to / u / sa / n” and it has five morae.

Since we use morae, it is much easier to count and pronounce it by letters.

In hiragana, “おとうさん”(5 letter) and “o / to / u / sa / n”(5 morae)

In conclusion, I’d like you to know about “mora,” and to know mora, it’s very important to understand hiragana and katakana first.

Japanese people don’t use syllables but morae when they use Japanese language so that sounds can correspond the letters.



This is the end of this blog. I hope you enjoy learning Japanese language.

In the next blog on Wednesday, I’m going to tell you about the expression “Read the air” in Japanese.