Page 56 - Basic Japanese

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ryaku [rya-ku] abbreviation

Ryūkyū [ryu-u-kyu-u] Ryukyu (Islands)

shōryaku [sho-o-rya- abbreviation, omission

ku]

jōryū [jo-o-ryu-u] upper reaches (of a
river)

daitōryō [da-i-to-o- president

ryo-o]

1.9. Syllabic nasal

There is one more sound that may cause you some trouble.
This is the syllabic nasal. The Japanese write this sound with

the same symbol, but it is pronounced in different ways,

depending on the sounds around it. For example, the n
sounds in tan-i ‘academic credits’ and tani ‘valley’ sound
completely different. The Hepburn Romanization writes the

syllabic nasal sometimes m, sometimes n and sometimes n’

or n- (n followed by an apostrophe or a hyphen). The sound
may be written m if it is followed by p, b, or m—any lip sound

other than f or w; it is written n’ or n- if it is followed by a

vowel (a, e, i, o, u) or by y; and it is written just n before
other consonants (including f and w) and at the end of a

word.