Quote:
Originally Posted by steven
Moving on to vowel sounds, there are things called "dipththongs". That would entail, for example, an "ah" sound mixed with an "eeee" sound to make a sound like "eye". An "ehh" sound mixed with an "eee" sound could make something close to "A". The list goes on, but my point is there are more than "5 vowels" in my opinion. This also reveals that Japanese characters aren't syllables because an あ+い wouldn't be "two" syllales in the English language-- but rather just one to make a sound like "eye" (approximately of course).
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Bad example. Strictly speaking, true diphthongs do not exist in (non-dialectical) Japanese. 「あい」 is actually pronounced as two distinctive 'syllables' [ai], not glided over like [aɪ̯]. This point is often made in (phonetics-focused) English lessons taken by native Japanese people, like
this one. Another example can be seen
here.
The absence of a diphthong in the Japanese 「愛」 (あい) [ai] also differentiates it from its Chinese equivalent, "爱" (ài) [aɪ̯˥˩]
This might be a better example.