Tuttle Compact Japanese Dictionary, 2nd Edition. Samuel E. Martin
on the basic language which underlies the written text, and the basic language: Spoken Japanese. That is why it is necessary to approach the written language from a good knowledge of the sentence structure and vocabulary of the spoken language.
GUIDE TO SYMBOLS
A fall of pitch occurs after the marked syllable (denoted by the mark ´). When the accent is on the last, the syllable’s fall in pitch is sometimes not apparent unless another word follows it.
áme 雨 rain
ashí 足[脚] foot, leg
(vowels: á, é, í, ó, ú; long vowels: ā´, ē´, ō´, ū´)
Long vowels ā, ē, ō, and ū: Vowels with macrons (a horizontal bar above the letter) are pronounced twice as long as regular vowels.
| Examples: | Meaning |
| byōdō (na) 平等(な) | equal |
| kyūka 休暇 | vacation, furlough |
| pēji 頁[ページ] | page |
| wā-puro ワープロ | word processor |
Sounds: The following have suppressed vowels.
| Examples: | Meaning |
| i, u | (These vowels are suppressed.) |
| hito 人 | person, man, fellow, people |
| suki-ma 隙間 | crack; opening; opportunity |
Note: A fuller explanation of the symbols shown above can be found in the Introduction.
PRONUNCIATON
In this dictionary, because we are dealing with the spoken language, the words are given in romanized form, based on the Hepburn romanization, which is traditionally favored by foreigners, with a few additional marks to help with the pronunciation. If at first the marks bother you, just disregard them; later you will probably find the notations useful as a reminder of what you have heard.
Japanese phrases are accompanied by little tunes that help the hearer know what words a phrase contains. The tunes consist of a limited number of patterns of higher and lower pitch; each phrase has an inherent pattern. For example, the following common tune is rather monotonous: the pitch is slightly lower on the first syllable, then rises and stays on a plateau for the rest of the word or phrase:
| kono kodomo wa nakanai | ‘this child does not cry’ |
| この 子ども は 泣かない | |
| Yokohama e iku | ‘goes to Yokohama’ |
| 横浜 へ 行く |
A less common tune starts high and immediately falls, staying down till the end:
áme desu 雨 です ‘it’s rain’
Méguro e mo iku 目黒 へ も 行く ‘goes to Meguro too’
Other tunes rise to a plateau and then fall at some point before the end:
Akásaka 赤坂 ‘Akasaka’
Ikebúkuro 池袋 ‘Ikebukuro’
yasumimáshita 休みました ‘rested’
When the accent, i.e., a fall of pitch, is on the last syllable, you sometimes cannot hear it unless another word, such as a particle, is attached:
hana (ga akai) 鼻(が 赤い) ‘the nose (is red)’
haá (ga akai) 花(が 赤い) ‘the flower (is red)’
When the change of pitch is within a long syllable, you will probably notice a rise or fall within the syllable, as shown by these place names:
| Ōsaka 大阪 | = oosaka | Kyōto 京都 | = kyóoto |
| Ryūkū 琉球 | = ryuukyúu | Taitō-ku 台東区 | = taitóoku |
When a word has more than one accent mark that means the word has variant forms. Some people may say it with the fall at one of the syllables, others at a different syllable. When an accent mark appears in parentheses, the word is often phrased with the preceding word, which carries an accent. That accounts for the difference between hírō shimásu [披露します] ‘performs, announces, etc.’ and riyō shimásu [利用します] ‘presumes, uses, etc.’. The accent of a particular word, especially a verb form, may change in certain contexts, as explained in the grammars; the changes often involve an accent acquired or lost on the last syllable of the form. A compound word has an inherent tune that follows rules somewhat independent of those of the component elements.
Japanese speakers often reduce the short vowels i and u in certain words by devoicing (whispering) them or even suppressing them completely. The vowel reductions are a surface phenomenon, a kind of last-minute touch when you are about to speak your sentence, and they are ignored by the traditional writing system and most transcriptions. But there are many subtleties to the rules that call for i and u instead of i or u, and they often involve word boundaries and other grammatical factors. It isn’t just a matter of “whisper i and u when used between voiceless consonants (p, t, k, f, s, h),” though that is a good rule. You can have more than one whispered vowel in a word (kikimáshita [聞きました] ‘I heard it’) but not in successive syllables (kikitai [聞きたい] ‘I want to hear it’). Usually it is the first of two susceptible syllables that are whispered, but not always. Syllables beginning with (p, t, k) are more resistant than those that begin with the affricates (ch and ts). And, syllables beginning with these affricates are more resistant than syllables that begin with fricatives (f, h, s, sh), in rekishi-ka [歴史家] ‘historian’ (from rekishi [歴史] ‘history’). In the foregoing fricatives, it is the second of the susceptible syllables that is whispered.
Another general rule is that i and u are unvoiced at the end of a word that has an inherent accent when that word ends a phrase or sentence. That is why we write all the polite non-past forms as …másu [… ます].
The vowel will remain voiceless before a voiceless consonant (dekimásu ka [できますか] ‘Can you do it?’) but usually will get voiced before a voiced consonant (dekimásu ga [できますが] ‘I can, but’). For nouns, however, and for verb forms other than …másu [… ます], we have not marked as voiceless such cases of final ...i and ...u, because so often they are followed by particles or other elements that begin with a voiced consonant. For example, by itself gásu [ガス] ‘gas’ is pronounced gásu (and dásu [出す] ‘puts it out’ is pronounced dásu) but the second syllable will be voiced in the more common phrases that you hear, such as gásu o tsukéte kudasai [ガスをつけて下さい] ‘turn on the gas.’
When shimásu [します] ‘does’ is attached to a noun that ends in a reducible syllable, we write the voiceless vowel: insatsu [印刷] ‘printing’ that becomes insatsu shimásu [印刷します] ‘prints it’. (This dictionary does not always call your attention to regular