ほ /ho/ pronunciation


I've just started using Mango's On-the-Go (meaning "audio-only version")
Japanese course. (It's free from my library. They also have Pimsleur, though
their only copy is in use right now.)

I think I've heard the speakers sometimes pronounce ほ as /xo/ rather than
/ho/. Is that a thing? Is it a regional thing? Or am I maybe just mishearing?

(I also hear ん pronounced as /n/ or /m/ sometimes at the ends of utterances
when it should be /ɴ/, which confuses me as well… though maybe I should write
this as a separate question.)




there are many regional differences in pronunciation, but without actually
hearing what you're hearing, I'm not sure anyone can answer the first part of
your question well.

The second part of your question is easy though. ん IS pronounced differently
at the end of different words... unfortunately I'm not familiar with phonetic
notation, so your descriptions of the sounds doesn't help me hear what you're
hearing, but ん can sound like an "n", an "m" or a slightly devoiced "ng" sound
depending on the word, or even its position inside the word, and sometimes
also depending on the word's placement in the sentence.

in short, as far as ん goes, your ears are not deceiving you.

as for ほ, are you sure it's ほ and not を or some other "o" sound ending
syllable? I wish I understood what /xo/ sounded like, so I could be more
helpful there.

