Japanese has 5, pure vowel sounds that may be short or long.

The syllable structure is

simple, generally with the vowel sound preceded by one of approximately 15 consonant
sounds. There are few complex consonant sound combinations such as in the English
words strength or Christmas. As a result of these differences Japanese ESL students find
English hard to pronounce, often insert short vowels between the consonants (ste-rength.
Japanese learners of English may even have difficulty in correctly perceiving what they hear.

Vowel phonemes

IPA

/a/

/i/

Notes

This is a low central vowel, []; it is most like RP English u in cut, but with the mouth slightly
more open.

This sounds like the English ee in feet.

This is a somewhat centralized close back compressed vowel, [ ]

listen (helpinfo),

/u/ pronounced with the lips compressed toward each other but neither rounded like [u] nor spread
to the sides like [ ] .

/e/ This is [ee ], somewhat like the English e in set.

/o/ This is [oe ]

listen (helpinfo), somewhere between the o in English core and the o in coke.

The vowels of Standard Japanese on avowel chart. Adapted from Okada (1991:94).

All of the Japanese vowels are pronounced as monophthongs. Except for /u/ (and to a lesser
extent /a/), the short vowels are similar to their Spanish or Italian counterparts.
Vowels have a phonemic length contrast (i.e. short vs. long). Compare contrasting pairs of words
like ojisan /ozisa / 'uncle' vs. ojiisan/oziisa / 'grandfather', or tsuki /tuki/ 'moon'
vs. tski /tuuki/ 'airflow'.
In most phonological analyses, all syllables with a short vowel as their nucleus are treated as
occurring within the timeframe of onemora, or in other terms, one beat. According to traditional
conventions, long vowels are described as a sequence of two identical vowels. For
example, ojiisan will be rendered as /oziisa /, not /ozisa/. Analysing long vowels in this manner is
in accord with the traditions of Japanese linguistics and poetry, wherein long vowels are always
considered separate moras.
Within words and phrases, Japanese allows long sequences of phonetic vowels without intervening
consonants, pronounced withhiatus, although the pitch accent and slight rhythm breaks help track
the timing when the vowels are identical. Sequences of two vowels within a single word are
extremely common, occurring at the end of many i-type adjectives, for example, and having three or
more vowels in sequence within a word also occurs, as in aoi 'blue/green'. In phrases, sequences
with multiple o sounds are most common, due to the direct object particle 'wo' (which comes after
a word) being realized as o and the honorific prefix 'o', which can occur in sequence, and may
follow a word itself terminating in an o sound; these may be dropped in rapid speech. A fairly
common construction exhibiting these is ... (w)o o-okuri-shimasu 'humbly
send ...'. More extreme examples follow:
/hoo.oo.o/ [h..]

h o ()

'Phoenix (Fenghuang)' (direct object)

/too.oo.o.oo.u/ [to.o... ]

'to cover Eastern Europe'

t o u () (This artificial example would be unlikely in
normal speech.)

The Japanese language has only 5 vowels: a, i, u, e, o. They are terse vowels,
pronounced clearly and sharply. If one pronounces the vowels in the following
sentence one will have their approximate sounds. Please note: the "u" is
pronounced with no forward movement of the lips.
Ah (a), we (i) soon (u) get (e) old (o).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgIFGeiWqHU