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Why は is pronounced as 'wa' when it is used as connecting word (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by glorious_puffy@lemmy.world to c/learnjapanese@lemmy.ml

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わなしは　にほんじんです Here は is read as wa instead of its usual ha Can somebody explain this?

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[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure there's an answer beyond "because sometimes 'は' is pronounced 'wa'."

Kindof like asking "why is 'c' sometimes pronounced like an 's' like in 'cistern.'"

"こんにちは" is another word in which "は" is pronounced "wa".

I'd imagine there are probably historical reasons, but I don't know them. I suspect the cases where "は" is pronounced "wa" are pretty rare and just have to be learned by wrote.

[–] glorious_puffy@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I was confused when there was no explaination in genki, hence the question. Thanks for answering

[–] SOMETHINGSWRONG@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Other East Asian languages sometimes simplify pronunciation in these exact situations to avoid awkward glottal stops and make it easier to say/flow better.

While Japanese isn’t my specialty (I know what comm I’m in hahah), I would assume similar.