Japanese (ja-JP)

Amazon Polly supports the Pronunciation Kana and Yomigana alphabets for Japanese. To make Amazon Polly use phonetic pronunciation with these alphabets, use the phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-phonetic standard used" attribute.

• x-amazon-pron-kana – indicates that Pronunciation Kana is used. Pronunciation Kana are special Katakana characters used for phonetic transcription and can encode pitch accent.

• x-amazon-yomigana – indicates that Yomigana is used. Yomigana can be conventional Katakana, Hiragana, and Latin alphabets interpreted as hepburn romanization.

The following examples show how these are used:

Pronunciation Kana

<speak>
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-pron-kana" ph="ヒロカ'ズ">浩一</phoneme>です。
</speak>

Yomigana

<speak>
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-yomigana" ph="ひろかず">浩一</phoneme>です。
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-yomigana" ph="ヒロカズ">浩一</phoneme>です。
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-yomigana" ph="Hirokazu">浩一</phoneme>です。
</speak>

The following table lists the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) phonemes, the Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) symbols, and the corresponding visemes for the Japanese voice supported by Amazon Polly.

IPA	X-SAMPA	Description	Example	Viseme
Consonants
ɾ	4	alveolar flap	練習, renshuu	t
ʔ	?	glottal stop	あつっ, atsu'
b	b	voiced bilabial plosive	舞踊, buyou	p
β	B	voiced bilabial fricative	ヴィンテージ, vinteeji	B
c	c	voiceless palatal plosive	ききょう, kikyou	k
ç	C	voiceless palatal fricative	人, hito	k
d	d	voiced alveolar plosive	濁点, dakuten	t
d͡ʑ	dz\	voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	純, jun	J
ɡ	g	voiced velar plosive	ご飯, gohan	k
h	h	voiceless glottal fricative	本, hon	k
j	j	palatal approximant	屋根, yane	i
ɟ	J\	voiced palatal plosive	行儀, gyougi	J
k	k	voiceless velar plosive	漢字, kanji	k
ɺ	l\	alveolar lateral flap	釣り, tsuri	r
ɺj	l\j	alveolar lateral flap, palatal approximant	流行, ryuukou	r
m	m	bilabial nasal	飯, meshi	p
n	n	alveolar nasal	猫, neko	t
ɲ	J	palatal nasal	日本, nippon	J
ɴ	N\	uvular nasal	缶, kan	k
p	p	voiceless bilabial plosive	パン, pan	p
ɸ	p\	voiceless bilabial fricative	福, huku	f
s	s	voiceless alveolar fricative	層, sou	s
ɕ	s\	voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative	書簡, shokan	J
t	t	voiceless alveolar plosive	手紙, tegami	t
t͡s	ts	voiceless alveolar affricate	釣り, tsuri	s
t͡ɕ	ts\	voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	吉, kichi	J
w	w	labial-velar approximant	電話, denwa	u
z	z	voiced alveolar fricative	座敷, zashiki	s
Vowels
äː	a:_"	long open central unrounded vowel	羽蟻, haari	a
ä	a_"	open central unrounded vowel	仮名, kana	a
eː	e:_o	long mid front unrounded vowel	学生, gakusei	@
e	e_o	mid front unrounded vowel	歴, reki	@
i	i	close front unrounded vowel	気, ki	i
iː	i:	long close front unrounded vowel	詩歌, shiika	i
ɯ	M	close back unrounded vowel	運, un	i
ɯː	M:	long close back unrounded vowel	宗教, shuukyou	i
oː	o:_o	long mid back rounded vowel	購読, koodoku	o
o	o_o	mid back rounded vowel	読者, dokusha	o