1. Moraic Nasal "N" (ん) Rules
Global Rule: In almost all cases, the vowel preceding "N" becomes nasalized (e.g., a → ã). The table below describes how the nasal consonant itself changes.
| Following Context |
IPA Output |
| Followed by p b m |
mː (Bilabial) |
| Followed by t d n r ts |
nː (Alveolar) |
| Followed by k g |
ŋː (Velar) |
| Followed by ch j ny (ɲ) |
ɲː (Palatal) |
| Followed by s h y w |
ɰ͂ː (Nasalized Velar Approximant) |
| Followed by Vowels (a, i, u, e, o) |
ṼṼ (Double Nasalized Vowel) |
| End of Word or Default |
ɴː (Uvular) |
2. Sokuon (ッ) & Long Vowel Rules
| Input Symbol |
Processing Logic |
| ッ + Consonant |
Gemination (Double Consonant) + ːː |
| mm / nn |
Merge into mː / nː |
| ou / ei |
Correct to Long Vowel oː / eː |
| ー (Long Vowel Mark) |
Convert to length symbol ː |
3. Devoice Vowel & Others
Rule 1: High vowels i and ɯ (u) become voiceless (i̥ / ɯ̥) when they appear between two voiceless consonants ( k | s | t | h | p | ɕ | ɸ | ç | ts | tɕ ) or at the end of a word following a voiceless consonant.
Rule 1.1: Except when accent is at the vowel (when it is a high intonation vowel), but the converter aren't yet able to detect it.
Rule 2: The voiced velar stop g becomes the velar nasal ŋ when it appears immediately after a vowel (a, i, ɯ, e, o) within a word or as a particle (Except for foreign languages, but the converter aren't yet able to detect it).
Rule 2.1: This rule is no longer appearant among modern Japanese, but is still a part of the official rule.
| Input (Kana) |
Phonemic -> Phonetic |
| した (shita) |
ɕita → ɕi̥ta |
| きく（菊） (kiku) (H-L) |
kʲi̥kɯ → kʲikɯ |
| です (desu) |
desɯ → desɯ̥ (Word Final) |
| が行 |
g → ŋ |
To type i̥ or ɯ̥ in MS Word: type i/ɯ followed by unicode "0325", then Alt+X
The "g" used in this code is "ɡ" (IPA symbol) (U+0261)
When input, please separate sentence into word segments to avoid mislabelling
e.g., あの がくせいが would be [ano ɡakɯ̥seːŋa] rather than [anoŋakɯ̥seːŋa]
This website was made for my JPN2750 class at University of Western Ontario.
The IPA convertion was based on
this github project. However, the rules for conversion was hugely modified to align with Vance's style.
The font that allows display of unused kana "yi, ye, wu" was downloaded from
this website.
Thanks for Gemini's help in vibe coding this website, as well as helping me figuring out some technical issues that impedes me to update this website I created in high school