My Language Learning Journey - Ups & Downs - How I got over PRONOUCIATION

Have you learned Japanese pronunciation but cannot speak Japanese with confidence?

I understand your frustration because Japanese pronunciation is not like English at all and it was actually the same for me, as a native Japanese speaker, to master English pronunciation, like I used say ジャパン I couldn’t pronounce ‘Japan’.

So I was also frustrated when I was trying to pronounce English words as a Japanese person.

But don’t worry, you can master Japanese pronunciation on your own!

I’ll share how I improved my English pronunciation from zero and you can apply that into improving your Japanese pronunciation.

I’m a professional Japanese teacher with over 20 years of experience at UK universities, the foreign office and Japanese companies in London. I studied Applied Japanese Linguistics.

So, I’m sure my story and learning tips from my experience as (1) an English language learner, (2) a Japanese language teacher and (3) an applied Japanese linguist will make your Japanese learning journey much smoother!

You probably learned Japanese pronunciation, but you still cannot pronounce like a native Japanese speaker?

I felt exactly the same when I was studying English.

For example, I used to say チョコレートrather than ‘Chocolate’.

In my story 1, I talked about my childhood wasn’t ideal for learning English at all and told you what is the most important for successful language learning. In the story 2, I shared how I broke the old routine and started from ZERO. So, please check these stories if you haven’t.

On this post, I’ll continue my story from the time I finally started studying English at the age of 17.

I’ll give you my learning tips at the end. Now, this is what I went through when I was learning pronunciation. There are many points but I’d like to focus on Japanese vowels here because these are the first thing you should master to improve your Japanese dramatically.

<MY STORY ABOUT HOW I IMPROVED MY PRONOUNCIATION>

I was absolutely hopeless with English pronunciation.  For example, I always said Japan ([a] as Japanese [a]) not Japan [dʒəˈpæn].

The big difference between English and Japanese are the vowels, a, i, u, e, o.

Japanese language has just five [a] [i] [u] [e] [o], while English has 20. That’s why, I struggled a lot to pronounce something I’ve ever pronounced I my life.

Can you say ‘Japan’ in Japanese way? Actually this is the best way for you to master Japanese pronunciation.

In Japanese, we have Roma-ji written in English alphabet and ‘a’ is always [a].

Because the Japanese language has a ‘hiragana’ table and あ has only one sound to pronounce it.

English has 5 sounds for alphabet ‘a’.

For example,

1 about [ə]

２ cat [æ]

3 day[e]

4 car [ɑː]

5 all [ɔː]

My background is an academia but Japanese people often say academia (all ‘a’ with the same sounds…) This difference was a huge block for me to pronounce like a native English speaker.

<JAPNESE LEARNING TIPS>

🌸English language learner

If you can say academia when you start speaking Japanese from the very beginning,  it’s a good start.

Anyway, I carefully articulated every time I said a word.

🌸Japanese language teacher

Often even advanced learners pronounce vowels which Japanese don’t have. But simply use only  [a][i][u][e][o] and try not to say  the rest of 15 sounds English has when you speak Japanese.

You are lucky you know how to pronounce these 5 already!

Once you focus on using only these 5 vowels, your Japanese will sound like a native Japanese speaker!

🌸Applied Japanese Linguist

Japanese scripts are phonetic like Spanish and Italian. It might be a good idea to master the hiragana table.

For example, say

あい[a i] (love)

あお[a o](blue)

いえ[i e](house)

うえ[u e](on top)

あか[a ka](red)

あさ[a sa](morning)

さか[sa ka](slope)

You can pronounce as you see each hiragana.

So, you can start your tongue training from today. Learning Japanese is like learning the piano. Daily physical practice accelerates your learning, because using more senses are more stimulus to your brain.

Focus on Japanese five vowels and don’t say other 15 vowels from English.

Every day speaking practice even just 5 minutes gives you a great result after a month. Master speaking Japanese can be a great tool for your daily speaking practice.

You can sound like a native speaker even at a beginner level. My students are very happy to get a compliment. Samuel said,

‘Hello everyone, my name is Samuel Dallimore and I'm the founder and CEO of LUX.

As I've progressively worked through the different lessons, there was my first visit to Japan, and I visited again in September 2025 and January of this year.

People then were asking me if I then lived in Tokyo, because my accent and the pronunciation I was told was very good.

And this has come down to one very specific reason which I owe all of my gratitude to Arai sensei because she is very particular on pronunciation.

The quality of what you say is far more important than the quantity and the number of words that you're trying to say.

Getting the small amount of words that I do speak grammatically correct and also the pronunciation is very important in the lessons and I have seen first-hand the benefits that have come from this.

If you're willing to make the effort to really try to pronounce a few words but to a high level of quality, that also reflects in their culture is quality over quantity.

Everything they do, they do with pride and passion and care. I make sure that whatever I do I truly try to learn the pronunciation, the meaning behind the word.

Focus on quality over quantity and to work through methodically, Arai sensei has an entire series of tools and presentations and to help you understand the Japanese language in a more accessible manner and she has been absolutely invaluable in my journey. ’

The Master Speaking Japanese course is an interactive video-based self-study speaking course. Each lesson video is about 5 minutes. You actually practise with me. Play a video a day and simply repeat after me, answer my questions. You can join my monthly live learning support.

In 4 weeks, you’ll be a confident speaker like all my students.

I look forward to seeing you there!