In Tokyo dialect (standard Japanese), the sounds /i/ and /u/ usually become voiceless (i.e., whispered or devoiced) if they appear between voiceless consonants (/k/, /s/, /sh/, /t/, /ts/, /p/ or /h/) or at the end of a word.

If the sentence ends with /...desu/ (copula ending) or /...masu/ (polite verb ending), the final /u/ sound is also devoiced. If the sentence does not end with these two words, devoicing of the sentence-final /i/ and /u/ sounds may or may not occur. Compare the following:

	Literal pronunciation			Natural pronunciation
history	re ki shi れ き し	►		rekishi (or rekishi)	► (or ► )
munch	pa ku tsu ku ぱ く つ く	►		pakutsuku (or pakutsuku)	► (or ► )
junk	ga ra ku ta が ら く た	►		garakuta	►
I am Brown.	bu ra u n desu ブラウンです	►		buraun desu	►

Devoicing phenomena are much more complex than what's described above, and there are many regional, phonological and situational factors to consider. We will not go into the details here. Listen to the native speakers' pronunciation carefully and learn by examples.

Japanese is not a tonal language like Chinese and sounds relatively flat, but many homonyms (different words that look the same when written in ひらがな) are pronounced with a different intonation so they can be distinguished.

Since ひらがな does not differentiate intonation patterns, the only way to learn the differences is by listening carefully to the pronunciation of native speakers of standard Japanese. In the following, the first きた is pronounced as the verb came and the second きた is pronounced as the verb put on [clothes]. When syllables turn voiceless (き part), the differences become rather subtle. Click on the words below to hear the difference.

came	put on [clothes]