1.1 The mora — Japanese counts beats, not syllables — Epoché
What you will be able to do Count the beats — the 拍 , or morae — in any Japanese word, and get the number right. Know that っ , ん and ー each take a full beat although none of them is a syllable. Say why strike is one syllable in English and ストライク is five beats in Japanese, and what that does to your accent. Stop giving Japanese words English stress and English rhythm, and hear yourself when you slip. Prerequisites : lesson 0.10 — all ninety-two kana, read at the speed of forty sentences. You have been counting beats since lesson 0.4 without being told why. This is why. If there is a single mechanical fact that separates an English speaker's Japanese from a Japanese speaker's, it is this one, and it can be fixed by deliberate counting in a way that most accent problems cannot. English counts syllables; Japanese counts beats An English syllable can be almost any size. A is a syllable. So is strengths , which has three consonants at the front and four at the back. English does not care, because what English measures is not the syllable's contents but its stress : one syllable in each word gets promoted and the others get squeezed, and the squeezing is how English keeps its rhythm even. Japanese measures differently. Its unit is the 拍 — the mora — and a mora is almost exactly one kana character. Every mora takes the same amount of time as every other, and none of them is promoted. A Japanese word is therefore not a shape with a peak; it is a row of equal beats, and the length of the row is part of the word's identity. This is why the beat count is not a detail. おばさん and おばあさん are different words because one row is four beats and the other is five. English has no comparable mechanism, and your instinct will be to make both rows the same length and let something else carry the difference. There is nothing else. One character, one beat — with three surprises The rule is nearly perfect: count the kana. Three things trip people up, and all three come from lesson 0.5. Character Beats Any ordinary kana — か , ん , ト 1 each A small ゃ , ゅ , ょ 0 — it fuses with the character before it, and the pair is one beat A small っ 1 — a beat of silence, although no sound comes out ん 1 — a beat of its own, not a tail on the vowel before it ー 1 — it holds the previous vowel for one more beat So: count the characters, then subtract one for every small ゃゅょ . That is the whole method. きょう is three characters and two beats ( kyo-o ). がっこう is four characters and four beats ( ga-(silence)-ko-o ). びょういん is five characters and four beats. コンピューター is seven characters and six beats. The one that catches nearly everybody is ん . An English speaker says にほん as two syllables, ni-hon , with the n riding on the second vowel. It is three beats, ni-ho-n , and the n gets as much time as the ni . Say it slowly, three taps, and it will feel absurdly deliberate. That is what it sounds like when it is right. Thirty words to count Say each aloud while tapping the table once per beat, then check the number. Do not read the number first. Word Beats て 1 — hand ねこ 2 — cat ほん 2 — book (not one) きょう 2 — today (three characters) じゅう 2 — ten にほん 3 — Japan ともだち 4 — friend きって 3 — postage stamp がっこう 4 — school せんせい 4 — teacher びょういん 4 — hospital (five characters) びよういん 5 — beauty salon おばさん 4 — aunt おばあさん 5 — grandmother とうきょう 4 — Tokyo (five characters) しんぶん 4 — newspaper ぎんこう 4 — bank でんわ 3 — telephone おいしい 4 — delicious たべもの 4 — food パン 2 — bread ミルク 3 — milk コーヒー 4 — coffee タクシー 4 — taxi レストラン 5 — restaurant チョコレート 5 — chocolate (six characters) ストライク 5 — strike コンピューター 6 — computer (seven characters) マクドナルド 6 — McDonald's クリスマス 5 — Christmas What English does to a borrowed word, in beats The clearest way to feel the difference is to count both sides. English syllables against Japanese beats: English Japanese strike — 1 syllable ストライク — 5 beats Christmas — 2 クリスマス — 5 McDonald's — 3 マクドナルド — 6 computer — 3 コンピューター — 6 chocolate — 3 チョコレート — 5 milk — 1 ミルク — 3 Two mechanisms produce the gap, and you met both in lesson 0.6. Japanese inserts a vowel after every consonant that would otherwise be stranded, so English str- becomes three beats before the vowel of the original syllable arrives. And a long vowel written with ー adds another beat that the English does not have. The practical point is uncomfortable but simple. When you say ストライク with one English stress on the first beat and the rest squeezed, you have produced something that a Japanese listener hears as a word with the wrong number of beats — which is to say, not a word. Being understood in Japanese depends on the count far more than on the quality of your consonants. Minimal pairs Pairs distinguished by beat count alone. Say each one out loud twice, tapping, and make the difference audible in your own voice before you move on. Fewer beats More beats にほん 3 — Japan にっぽん 4 — Japan (the emphatic reading) きて 2 — come! きって 3 — postage stamp おと 2 — sound おっと 3 — husband さか 2 — slope さっか 3 — writer ぶか 2 — a subordinate ぶっか 3 — prices また 2 — again まった 3 — waited ここ 2 — here こうこう 4 — high school とし 2 — year とうし 3 — investment ゆき 2 — snow ゆうき 3 — courage びょういん 4 — hospital びよういん 5 — beauty salon じゅう 2 — ten じゆう 3 — freedom おばさん 4 — aunt おばあさん 5 — grandmother Notice that three different devices are doing the same job in that table: a small っ , a long vowel, and the size of a ゅ . From the ear's point of view they are one thing — a beat, present or absent — which is why Japanese phonology treats them together and why counting is the skill rather than memorising the devices. In real sentences Read each aloud, tapping once per beat on the marked word. Japanese English かれはコンピューターにくわしい。 [1] He is familiar with computers. — コンピューター 6 beats そのぎんこうはどこにありますか。 [2] Where is that bank? — ぎんこう 4 beats ちょっとぎんこうによってくる。 [3] I'm just going to run down to the bank. — ちょっと 3 beats そこはとうきょうです。 [4] That is Tokyo. — とうきょう 4 beats, 5 characters とうきょうはすばらしかった。 [5] Tokyo was really wonderful. The third one is a useful test of e