Thread: How to pronounce kanban

Hello,
Does anybody speak Japanese? I was thinking of the kanban strategy to work. I didn't know it was a Japanese word because it doesn't look so. I heard that Japanese syllables didn't have consonants after the vowel as the -n and that foreign names are adapted to follow this structure. Now, why is there an exception with kanban?

I know some Japanese, and it really does look like a Japanese word! o(*≧□≦)o

It is true that most syllables do not end in consonants. The Japanese alphabet is actually made of Kanji and a couple of syllabaries. Each syllable is called a kana. The only "loose consonant" is the n. That is why you can have syllables ending in -n.
It's not that "kanban" is an exception, it's just how the "n" is used.

There is a game called shiritori where you have to say a word that starts with the final kana of the previous word. For example,

ka-o (face)
o-ka-ne (money)
ne-ko (cat)
kou-en (park)。

If you say a word ending in -n, you lose, since there are no words starting with "n". Remember that na, ni, nu, ne and no are syllables.

Thanks, solg! I didn't know that n had a different condition.
Is that why the example of the game has "okane" and then "neko"?

Originally Posted by danielr

Thanks, solg! I didn't know that n had a different condition.
Is that why the example of the game has "okane" and then "neko"?

Exactly! Those are syllables, so they do not "start with n", since n is a different kana.
You probably don't know kana, but it's easier to visualize:

kao 　かお　
okane 　おかね
neko 　ねこ
kouen 　こうえん

Nothing starts with ん, so you loose.

Oh, I see. Thank you. It's true the syllabaries work in that way.

Kanban methodology in Chinese is called 看板管理, and it is also pronounced as /kan'ban/.

you can find this pronunciation at Japanese search engine audio speak...

I heard it in forvo before asking here and it didn't solve my doubt until I got the explanations.

That is wonderful!