| Hi everyone, I'm Motoko. Today, I'm talking about how to say letters in Japanese. Letters is alphabets, English alphabets. But in Japanese, we have our own writing system, but still, we use English alphabets as a part of writing system. Most of the letters have similar pronunciation to English but some of them has quite different reading. So, today, we will cover those similar reading and different reading. And then our goal is to spell your name in Japanese. |
| Let's go! |
| So for example, in Japan, we use these alphabets for clothing size or drink size. For "small," "medium," "large," would be S, M, and L, in Japanese. |
| But English letters aren't just useful when you go shopping, you can use, when you spell your name, when you spell your email address, and then other common things, you need to say the spelling in English. |
| So, let's go! |
| So here are the alphabets from A to Z. |
| Let me go through the whole alphabets in English, and then in Japanese. |
| A become エー (ē) |
| B become ビー (bī) |
| C become シー (shī) |
| D become ディー (dī) |
| E become イー (ī) |
| F become エフ (efu) |
| G become ジー (jī) |
| H become エイチ (eichi) |
| I become アイ (ai) |
| J become ジェー (jē) |
| K become ケー (kē) |
| L become エル (eru) |
| M become エム (emu) |
| N become エヌ (enu) |
| O become オー (ō) |
| P become ピー (pī) |
| Q become キュー (kyū) |
| R become アール (āru) |
| S become エス (esu) |
| T become ティー (tī) |
| U become ユー (yū) |
| V become ブイ (bui) |
| W become ダブリュー (daburyū) |
| X become エックス (ekkusu) |
| Y become ワイ (wai) |
| Z become ゼット (zetto) |
| Ok? |
| In most cases, English sound is quite similar to Japanese sound. But these highlighted ones have quite different sounds. |
| In Japanese, |
| シー (shī) |
| エル (eru) |
| エム (emu) |
| エヌ (enu) |
| アール (āru) |
| ブイ (bui) |
| ゼット (zetto) |
| So, for C, similar to English word "she," so it's not that difficult. But for L, M, N, they are quite different, so you need to take care that second sound ル (ru), ム (mu), and ヌ (nu). Then you can get |
| エル (eru) |
| エム (emu) |
| エヌ (enu) |
| And for R, that's quite different, アール (āru). This is because Japanese cannot say the R sound. So don't roll your tongue, just say アール (āru). |
| For V, this sound also doesn't exist in Japanese so you can say ブイ (bui), it's similar to B sound, but two syllables, ブイ (bui), ブイ (bui). |
| And last one, in American English, it's Z, but in Japanese, ゼット (zetto), so three syllables, ゼット (zetto). |
| So next point is even in English you would say "B as in Brazil" or "D as in Denmark" to avoid misunderstanding, that applies to Japanese. |
| So as I said, you can say ビー (bī). |
| "What?" someone says, then you can say ブラジルのビー です。(Burajiru no bī desu.) |
| "B as in Brazil" |
| Or, ディー (dī) |
| What did you say? |
| And then you can say, デンマークのディーです。(denmāku no dī desu.) |
| "D as in Denmark" |
| So that applies to Japanese as well. |
| However, sometimes the country name doesn't work, it is L, because Japanese doesn't have words with L. So, for L, I recommend エルサイズのエルです (eru saizu no eru desu), "L for size L." Then Japanese would understand, oh! L size! |
| However, please note that sometimes English word is different from Japanese word. |
| For example, when you want to say G, and you say "G for Germany" but it doesn't work in Japanese. |
| In Japanese, Germany is ドイツ (doitsu), so it doesn't contain G. So instead, you need to find another word, such as Ghana, African country. |
| Another tips is to use location in Japan. You would know lots of cities in Japan and that helps you to explain what you said. |
| For example, do you know Yokohama? |
| It is one of the largest cities in Japan and it's near Tokyo. |
| So, if you know Yokohama, Y - ヨコハマのワイです。(Yokohama no wai desu.) |
| That explains a lot to Japanese people. |
| Next step, let's practice how to spell out your name. So I randomly prepared those names, Amanda, David, Phillip, and Evelyn. |
| So can you spell those names in Japanese? |
| Are you ready? |
| So, Amanda would be エー (ē) エム (emu) エー (ē) エヌ (enu) ディー (dī) エー (ē) |
| Amanda! Ok? |
| Second, David. |
| ディー (dī) エー (ē) ブイ (bui) アイ (ai) ディー (dī) |
| David. |
| Phillip. |
| ピー (pī) エイチ (eichi) アイ (ai) エル (eru) エル (eru) アイ (ai) ピー (pī) |
| Phillip. |
| Evelyn. |
| イー (ī) ブイ (bui) イー (ī) エル (eru) ワイ (wai) エヌ (enu) |
| Evelyn. |
| Thank you for watching! I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you want to learn more Japanese, please visit JapanesePod101.com and then get Free Lifetime Account. |
| See you again somewhere! じゃ、また。(ja, mata.) |
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