What is the difference in sound between 'あん' and 'えん'?


かん vs けん, だん vs でん for example. Sometimes, they sound the same to my ears. How
to differentiate them? Or are they pronounced the same?




So you are one of those people who pick three one-yen coins from their wallet
when asked to pay one thousand.

It is hard to tell how to differentiate two sounds to someone who can’t
differentiate them, not least in writing. One thing I can tell for sure is
that under practically no circumstances are あん /aN/ and えん /eN/ pronounced the
same. As a general rule, Japanese vowels retain their qualities regardless of
their position in a word, whether they are long or short, or what other sound
comes before or after them.

From the description in your comment it seems that the difficulty arises for
you when /aN/ or /eN/ is pronounced like one nasalized vowel, rather than a
two-mora sequence. Then, it could be because you are not used to the /e/ sound
getting nasalized. I learned from the Wikipedia entry on [Burmese
phonology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_phonology) that the /e/ sound
occurs only in open syllables in your language and also that nasalization
happens when a syllable ends with a nasal final, such as /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/,
which by definition never happens in an open syllable. Since /e/ does exist as
a distinct sound from /a/, you might want to begin by trying to produce a
nasalized /e/ yourself and see how it sounds differently from a nasalized /a/.

I don’t think I can’t give any better advice than this.

