How to Pronounce Japanese Names

We certainly had fun in Las Vegas, enjoying some quality down time. On the way back to San Diego, our flight was delayed due to mechanical problems, causing us to wait at the gate to be put on another flight. When the airline counter called my my wife, they had the usual trouble with her Japanese name, stuttering over it several times, so I thought I'd write a simple pronunciation guide. Basically, keep in mind that:

a) Japanese words or names are made up of syllables, e.g. ka, ki, ku, ke or ko, never "k" by itself

b) the only syllables that don't come in consonant + vowel pairs are the five vowels by themselves and n, which can only come at the end of words; note that three sounds, shi, chi and tsu don't follow the neat consonant + vowel pairing, but just treat them as whole sounds

c) the five vowel sounds are always a ("ah"), i ("ee"), u ("oo"), e ("eh") and o ("oh"), with no exceptions

d) English rules of pronunciation don't apply to Japanese, and every syllable is pronounced, hence the name Kazue would be "KAH-zoo-eh" and not "kah-ZOO" (the English concept of silent e doesn't work in Japanese); note that Chi is always a hard sound, not soft as in "Chicago."

e) the best way to get comfortable with Japanese names or words is to listen to them, so watch anime in the original Japanese and repeat what you hear, or ask Japanese people to pronounce things for you.