Pronunciation of を (the particle)

Japanese
#1

I feel dumb even posting this, since there are a billion articles on the web about it. According to all of those articles, in “modern” Japanese (i.e. from at least the 20th century, if not earlier), it’s been pronounced “o” (in spite of the actual character representing the “wo” sound).

I have a good friend who grew up in Japan, but moved to USA for college (roughly 20 years ago). This friend admits that their Japanese language skills have weakened in the 20 years they’ve live in the USA, but they also have recently managed to find a lot of other Japanese-American friends, which allows them to use their Japanese more often now. Anyway, this friend tells me that the particle is pronounced “wo” to the best of their knowledge. They’re from Nagoya, FWIW. I am smart enough not to argue with a native that “I know better because I read some articles saying otherwise”… but I’m also confused at the discrepancy between everything I’m reading, and what the one Japanese person I know in real life is saying.

Can somebody straighten me out?

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#2

I’ve definitely heard it pronounced “wo” before, but I’d say the vast majority of the time I hear it, it’s “o” (or closer to it). I think when I have heard “wo,” it’s not usually a very strong W sound. It’s almost more like the sounds kind of flow in a way that has a bit of a W in it? I’m not sure how to explain it.

“En” instead of “yen” is similar, IMO. Sometimes when people say it, it does sound a bit like there’s a Y there, but if you just asked someone to say it, it’s “en” not “yen.” I think when it does get a hint of the “y” in there, it’s because it’s a blending of what comes in front of it.

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#3

It’s pronounced “o” in standard Japanese. There are apparently a few dialects that still use the old “wo” pronunciation (the dialect spoken in Ehime apparently being one of them), but “o” is the normal, modern pronunciation.

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#4

It’s worth noting that neither the standard w consonant sound in Japanese nor the o vowel sound maps exactly to the English equivalents. This could lead to some aural misinterpretations on the part of the non-native speaker and an inability of a native speaker to note a difference that a non-native speaker might hear.

From some quick poking around, it seems like を is most generally cited as not carrying the consonant sound but as others have cited here it still is in use amongst certain populations

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#5

Most people pronounce it as “o” is most situations, but there are many people who mix it up, or will say “wo” for emphasis, and as previously mentioned, people who say it because of their age/dialect/region.

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#6

The only time I heard it overpronounced as “wo” was by a STU48 member in a song. I was curious if it was dialectal, but couldn’t find sources. Then I found some random interview of her during which she just pronounced を as “o”. As I was unable to find further information I dismissed it as “done for stylistic reasons in that specific song”. This is the only time I noticed someone pronouncing を as wo.

Before giving up and after roughly two hours of manual search, I resorted to asking ChatGPT but I got a completely hallucinated answer that couldn’t be verified by searching for the statements that it made.

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#7

From Dogen’s videos, を as wo is a thing that happens, particularly in dialects, songs, etc., but pronouncing it the same as お is standard.

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#8

The Hypnosis Mic song パーティーを止めないで also pronounces it as wo for emphasis I assume

#9

Yeah I think that might be part of it. But I tried to account for that when having a conversation with this friend last night, I said are you sure it’s “woah” and not “oh”? They insisted yes it was.

But obviously I’m not going to belabor the point with them anymore. Thanks everybody for the feedback.

#10

This is something that is taught differently in different parts of Japan. In some places kids are taught that を is pronounced ‘O’ and in other places kids a taught to pronounce it as ‘WO’. However, when it is used in a sentence, most people will pronounce it like お.

I am also from Nagoya, like your friends and I was taught to pronounce it as ‘WO’ from teachers and parents, but when we speak, we pronounce it the same way as お. However, there are places in Japan, like Ehime, where they pronounce を as ‘WO’.

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#11

Thanks for the perspective from Nagoya! Maybe the friend is just trying to teach me the same way their teachers taught them. :grin:

#12

I’ve only ever heard it pronounced with the hard w in songs.