hiragana logo Syllabic ん (/nn/)
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1 　Pronunciation of ん ▲　

 

The letter, ん, is treated like a syllable by itself. The pronunciation of ん changes depending on its phonological context.

ん sounds like... before Examples
/m/ /m/ (ま, み, む, め, も)
/b/ (ば, び, ぶ, べ, ぼ)
/p/ (ぱ, ぴ, ぷ, ぺ, ぽ)
こんぶ
/n/ /t/, /ch/ or /ts/ (た, ち, つ, て, と)
/z/, /dg/ or /dz/ (ざ, じ, ず, ぜ, ぞ)
/d/ or /dg/ or /dz/ (だ, ぢ, づ, で, ど)
/n/ (な, に, ぬ, ね, の)
/r/ (similar to ‘tt’ in ‘letter’) (ら, り, る, れ, ろ)
しんらい
/ng/ /k/ (か, き, く, け, こ)
/g/ or /ng/  (が, ぎ, ぐ, げ, ご)
げんき
/nn/

Full-syllable
nasalization		 /s/ or /sh/ (さ, し, す, せ, そ)
/h/ (は, ひ, ふ, へ, ほ)
/y/ (や, ゆ, よ)
/w/ (わ)
vowel (あ, い, う, え, お)


きんゆう
しんあい

2 　Position and Length of ん ▲　

 

ん occurs in the middle or at the end of a word. It NEVER occurs at the beginning of a Japanese word.

こんにち these days げんき good health
こんばん Good evening! げき stage play
ん before な, に, ぬ, ね and の retains its full syllabic length. Do not reduce two syllables (e.g., んな) to a single syllable (e.g., な). If you do so, you may end up with different words as shown below.
ほね
(2 syllables)		 bone ほんね
(3 syllables)		 true meaning
あな
(2 syllables)		 hole あんな
(3 syllables)		 that kind of

In some romaji-based dictionaries, when ん is followed by あ, い, う, え, お, や, ゆ, or よ, an apostrophe is used to distinguish it from な, に, ぬ, ね, の, にゃ, にゅ or にょ. Study the table below.

shinai = しない
(3 syllables)		 bamboo
sword		 shin'ai ＝ しんあい
(4 syllables)		 friendly love;
dear
kinyuu = きにゅう
(3 syllables)		 to fill in kin'yuu = きんゆう
(4 syllables)		 finance