[masraum]

Originally Posted by javadog

Lidicurous would probably be closer. I have many Japanese acquaintances and friends and have flirted with the idea of picking up a little Japanese, so as not to be so useless on a future trip to Japan. They can pronounce L’s and R’s just fine, but phonetically their words are broken up into 50 or 60 syllables and there are a lot of English words that don’t lend themselves to speech patterns using those same syllables. It’s complicated.

Most Japanese words that I've run across are not much longer (syllable-wise) than most English words. I'd say that their words are mostly 1-6 with a few in the 7-10 range. Very few are much longer than that. And pronunciation is mostly very simple. Most syllables are 2 letters (a few are 1 or 3) and most of the time, every letter is pronounced. And the pronunciation at least for the vowels is the same as for Spanish, Latin, etc...
a - ah
e - eh
i - ee
o - o (like "go")
u - oo

To get other sounds, you may combine multiple vowels
ai = ah-ee which sounds more like "eye"

There are a few instances where a letter will be silent.

sukiyaki which you might think would be pronounced soo-kee-yah-kee has a nearly silent u, so it comes out more like skee-yah-kee.

Syllables of Japanese
wa ra ya ma pa ba ha na da ta za sa ga ka a
-- ri -- mi pi bi hi ni -- chi ji shi gi ki i
-- ru yu mu pu bu hu nu -- tsu zu su gu ku u
-- re -- me pe be he ne de te ze se ge ke e
-- ro yo mo po bo ho no do to zo so go ko o

-- rya --- mya pya bya hya nya --- chya jya shya gya kya --
-- ryu --- myu pyu byu hyu nyu --- chyu jyu shyu gyu kyu --
-- ryo --- myo pyo byo hyo nyo --- chyo jyo shyo gyo kyo --