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 -m- before

　m-sound: ま, み, む, め, も 　b-sound: ば, び, ぶ, べ, ぼ 　p-sound: ぱ, ぴ, ぷ, ぺ, ぽ

 Example: こんぶ

ん sounds like -n- before

　t-sound, ch-sound, ts-sound: た, ち, つ, て, と 　z-sound, dg-sound, dz-sound: ざ, じ, ず, ぜ, ぞ 　d-sound or dg-sound, dz-sound: だ, ぢ, づ, で, ど 　n-sound: な, に, ぬ, ね, の 　r-sound (similar to -tt- in "letter"): ら, り, る, れ, ろ

Example: しんらい
ん sounds like -ng- before 　k-sound: か, き, く, け, こ 　g-sound or ng-sound: が, ぎ, ぐ, げ, ご Example: げんき
ん sounds like -nn- (full-syllable nasalization) before 　s-sound, sh-sound: さ, し, す, せ, そ 　h-sound: は, ひ, ふ, へ, ほ 　y-sound: や, ゆ, よ 　w-sound: わ 　any vowel: あ, い, う, え, お Example: 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 this 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. We will learn about the pronunciation of glides (i.e., -i- ending hiragana like き, し, ち, etc. followed by small hiragana ゃ, ゅ, ょ) later.

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
(the form) 		kin'yuu = きんゆう (4 syllables) finance
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