So far, we’ve looked at and talked about ALL of the Hiragana characters. Hooray! 👍🏾 👏🏾
Now, I’d like to bring attention to a select few of the characters we’ve looked at:
What do these characters have in common??
The answer is that they don’t actually make any sounds by themselves. They all depend on whatever character appears before them.
As it turns out, ん belongs in this group as well! In fact, the pronunciation of the ん character is so special that it has its own word - はつおん. (はつおん when written as 発音 just means “pronunciation” but when written as 撥音 means “the pronunciation of the ん character”) Even Japanese native speakers may not be aware of this, but the pronunciation of ん changes depending on the character that comes before it! 😱
I’ve chosen 3 different ways that native speakers pronounce ん so let’s take a look a them, one by one.
The sound combination of “n” with any of those other sounds is actually inconvenient for your mouth to produce. Of course it is possible, but in order for an easier pronunciation and to save time, your mouth basically changes the “n” sound to get ready for the next sound. This results in the sound becoming the “m” sound. Let’s look at an example:
あんまり means “not much” or “not really”. If you pronounced each sound for a small child to repeat, you would say “a-n-ma-ri”. When you say this word in a sentence though, it’s pronounced as “am-mari”.
Here is another example with a famous train station in Tōkyō - しんばし:
See how the ん is written as an “m” in the romaji spelling?
Here are some more examples:
こんばんは = good evening (pronounced as kom-ban-wa)*
じゅんび = preparation (pronounced as jum-bi)
ぜんぶ = all, everything (pronounced as zem-bu)
————-
えんぴつ = pencil (pronounced as em-pitsu)
さんぽ = a walk, a stroll (pronounced as sam-po)
Here is a great video from a channel called ひろのはつおん with him pronouncing ん as the “m” sound.
Our next pronunciation of ん is as the “NG” sound, like in the English word “sing”. If you focus on how you say the words “sink” and “sing” you’ll notice that these words both have the “ng” sound.
Some Japanese examples are:
げんかん = entrance or entryway (pronounced as “geng-kan”)
げんき = lively, energetic (pronounced as “geng-ki”)
てんき = the weather, good weather (pronounced as “teng-ki”)
でんき = electricity (pronounced as “deng-ki”)
べんきょう = study (pronounced as “beng-kyō”)
ゆうびんきょく = post office (pronounced as “yū-bing-kyoku”)
ぎんこう = a bank (pronounced as “ging-kō”)
おんがく = music (pronounced as “ong-gaku”)
こんげつ = this month (pronounced as “kong-getsu“)
ばんごう = (pronounced as “bang-gō“)
Here is a video with ん pronounced as the “ng” sound.
3) The Nasalized Vowel Sound [Ṽ]
This pronunciation of ん is a bit tricky. When it comes before any of those characters, it is basically pronounced as a more nasalized version of the “n” sound. Try humming the “n” sound from your nose and you will get this version of ん.
Now, take a look at the next 3 words:
げんいん
げにん (be careful!)
げいいん (ambiguous)
げんいん means “cause” or “original source”. It’s very important that you pronounce the ん separately from the い. If you pronounce it as “ge-nin” (げにん) you are saying “a low-rank person” or “a peasant”! If you pronounce it as “gei-in” (げいいん) the meaning becomes “over drinking”!
“Over drinking” is ONLY pronounced as げいいん. Interestingly though, because the pronunciation of げんいん and げいいん are so close, BOTH have become associated with the “cause” meaning. This leads to even native speakers getting confused sometimes!
Here are 2 more words where the first pronunciation has evolved into 2 choices for the same meaning:
ふんいき (now ふいんき is also possible) = vibe or atmosphere
はんおう (now はんのう is also possible) = response, replying
The next set of words are all pronounced with the nasalized vowel sound:
あんしん = peace of mind, relief
ぜんしん = whole body
でんしゃ = a train
こんしゅう = this week
ぶんしょう = sentences
せんせい = teacher, doctor, master
じんせい = one’s life
せんそう = war
——————
きんようび = Friday
——————
でんわ = telephone, or a telephone call
ほん を = a book, or books (as the direct object of an action)
Here is a video where you can hear the nasalized ん in action.
There you have it! There are actually more pronunciations of ん** but we won’t get into them here. I believe that if you are simply aware of the 3 pronunciations we talked about in this post, you will be more than on your way to excellent spoken Japanese. Also, it’s important to train your ears to hear the subtle differences in these pronunciations. Native speakers are often not aware of what they are saying but they sure do pick up on mistakes or variations quickly! No worries though; this is part of the learning experience!
*は is pronounced as “ha” when it is just a Hiragana character. However in this case, it is a particle - which is a Japanese part of speech. When は is a particle, it’s pronounced as “wa”
** Some sites say that there are 7 different pronunciations while others say that the number is 6. Here are ひろのはつおん’s videos on the other pronunciations of ん:
when not followed by any sound
when followed by t, d or n (but not ち、じ、or に)
when followed by ち、じ、or に
when followed by z or r
