Help:IPA for Japanese

The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Japanese language and Okinawan pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. Sounds occurring only as allophones are included for narrow transcription.

See Japanese phonology for a more thorough discussion of the sounds of Japanese.

Examples in the charts are Japanese words transliterated according to the Hepburn romanization system.

Consonants
IPA	Japanese example	English approximation
b	basho	bog
ç	hito	hue
ɕ	shita, shugo	sheep
d	dōmo	dome
dz, z^[1]	zutto	rods, zen
dʑ, ʑ^[1]	jibun, gojū	jeep, garagist
ɸ	fugu	who
ɡ	gakusei	gape
h	hon	hone
j	yakusha	yak
k^[2]	kuru	skate
m	mikan	much
n	nattō	not
ɴ	nihon	long
ŋ	ringo, rinku	finger, pink
p^[2]	pan	span
ɽ^[3]	roku	close to /t/ in auto in American English, or between lock and Scottish rock ([l] and [ɾ]).
s	suru	sue
t^[2]	taberu	stop
ts	tsunami	cats
tɕ	chikai, kinchō	itchy
w͍^[4]	wasabi	was
ʔ	(in Ryukyu languages)	uh-oh!

Suprasegmentals
IPA	Japanese example	English approximation
ː	long vowel: ojiisan	re-equalize
ː	double consonant: seppuku	big gram (compare big ram)
ꜜ^[6]	tone drops: kaꜜki (oyster), kakiꜜ (fence)
Syllabification
.	mo.e, a.ni.me

Notes

^ ^a ^b The fricative [z] tends to be used between vowels, and the affricate [dz] in pausa, though some speakers use [z] everywhere. Before /i/, this is palatalized to [dʑ]. This is usually represented phonemically as /z/. Some dialects maintain a distinction (see yotsugana).
^ ^a ^b ^c /p/, /t/, /k/ are unaspirated, as in Austronesian and Romance languages, or as in English spy, sty, sky.
^ The Japanese r varies between a postalveolar flap [ɽ] and an alveolar lateral flap [ɺ].
^ The Japanese w is not equivalent to a typical IPA [w] since it is pronounced with lip compression rather than rounding. The labial spreading diacritic is an extended IPA character.
^ ^a ^b There is no simple symbol in the IPA for Japanese u, which is neither rounded [u] nor unrounded [ɯ], but compressed [ɯ͡β̞]. The labial spreading diacritic is an extended IPA character.
^ The position of this downstep, which does not occur in all words, varies between dialects, and frequently is not indicated. The downstep is a drop in pitch; the word rises in pitch before the ꜜ. When ꜜ occurs after the final syllable of a word, any attached grammatical particles will have low tone.

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