は or わ?!

4 comments

1. は (wa) as a particle is for sentences and is usually followed after a subject.

   e.g. 私**は**コーラが好き (watashi **wa** cola ga suki)

2. は is usually pronounced as “ha”, but if it’s used as a subject particle it’s pronounced as “wa”.

   わ is always pronounced as “wa” but is not used as a subject marker.

   So the phrase わたしは is pronounced “watashiwa”.

   Whereas the name はるみ is pronounced “harumi”.

   Hope this clears things up for you.

3. — Cut-n-Paste —

   “Why is を pronounced ‘o’, は sometimes pronounced ‘wa’, and へ sometimes pronounced ‘e’?”

   The irregular pronunciations occur when these kana are being used as particles.
   It’s an accident of history that the particles escaped being regularized in
   kana reform.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_script_reform#Modern_kana_usage

   — Cut-n-Paste —

4. There’s also わ but it’s used completely different (at the end of sentence)

   https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/sentence-ending-particle-wa/

   I rarely ever heard it though.