How do you pronounce Heian?

[Ray B]

Heian = Hay-ahn
Pinan = Pee-nahn
Naihanchi/Naihanchin/Naifanchi = Nye-hahn-chee/Nye-hahn-chin/Nye-fahn-chee

You guys are killing me! Lol...

Here are two native speakers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DDppu5CRrc&mode=related&search=

 

[Sukerkin]

I reckon Jade and Ray have the right of it in the pronunciation stakes. Heian is the romanised transliteration of four hiragana characters with the phonetic sounds of:

hey ... ee ... ah ... un

Japanese is a relatively stressless language (meaning if a syllable is dominant then it is shown repeated) but some are less promounced than others - so Jades Hey-iAN feels pretty close to me tho' (because I'm English rather than Japanese) Hey-ahn actually sounds more correct.

 

[fnorfurfoot]

Thank you all for your help with this.