Japanese phonology is the system of sounds used in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. Unless otherwise noted, this article describes the standard variety of Japanese based on the Tokyo dialect. There is no overall consensus on the number of contrastive sounds (phonemes), but common approaches recognize at least 12 distinct consonants (as many as 21 in some analyses) and 5 distinct vowels,
![Japanese phonology - Wikipedia](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/cf4d01a63fc2b58dfac970f0d4dbaed9e0e4ee48/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fen%2Fthumb%2F8%2F8d%2FJapanese_vowel_chart_II.svg%2F250px-Japanese_vowel_chart_II.svg.png)