Page 38 - Basic Japanese

Note that there is a syllable, an even space of time, for
each vowel: ha-i, i-e, u-e, o-i, a-o-i.

Now, in English we do not have vowels in sequence. Each
vowel is followed either by a consonant or by one of those

three off-glides mentioned in 1.5: the y-glide in key, bay, by,
and boy; the w-glide in now, know, and new; the h-glide in

ah, yeah, law, and huh. When we Americans hear a
Japanese vowel sequence, we are apt to reinterpret this as

one of our combinations of vowel + glide. We hear Japanese
hai like English high and Japanese mae like English my. The
difficulty is that English high and my rhyme, but Japanese

hai and mae do not. The following chart will give you an idea

of the difference in pronunciation between the two English
words on the one hand and each of the Japanese words on
the other:

Note that there are some Tokyo speakers who do sound
their ai’s much like their ae’s. Such speakers rhyme the
words kaeru ‘return’ and hairu ‘enter.’ Speakers of Standard

Japanese, however, try to keep these sequences distinct.