CHAPTER II.
Pronunciation and Letter-Changes.
PRONUNCIATION.
IF ii. Japanese, when written phonetically with the Roman alphabet according to the phonetic spelling sanctioned by the Romanisation Society and Dr. Hepburn's Dic- tionary, requires the same letters as English, with the exception of /, q, v and x. The letter c occurs only in the combination ch, which is sounded nearly like English ch in " church," but a little more softly, as cha, " tea ;" chichi, " milk."
IT 12. The vowels are sounded as in Italian, but are always short unless marked with the sign of long quantity. It is impossible to express the values of the Japanese vowels correctly in English ; but, speaking approximately, we may say that
a resembles the a in " father," but is shorter.
e e ,, "men."
- ,, i " machine," ,, ,,
o ,,o "bone,"
n ,, ,, u ,, " bush."
o ,, ,, o "bone," but is a purer o.
u ,, oo,, "food."
IF 13. Great care must be taken to distinguish the short from the long vowels ; for there are many words totally distinct in meaning, but differing, so far as pronunciation is con- cerned, merely in the quantity of their vowels ; thus :
