[thaumasiotes]

> but the loan word in japanese is pronounced "faito" because the language demands that all words end in either a vowel or syllabic 'N'.

By the way, it's worth observing that that is a requirement of the kana writing system, but it's not a requirement of the language. [It also isn't a requirement of the kanji writing system, in which a symbol can indicate any arbitrary sequence of sounds, but that system is difficult to use for purposes of indicating pronunciation.] There are circumstances in which high vowels are entirely deleted, the most prominent example being the ordinary pronunciation of です /desɯ/ with no final vowel at all.

The fact that "fight" gets borrowed as "faito" also looks like an artifact of the spelling system - /o/ is not a high vowel and can't be deleted, but in native Japanese there is no tu syllable - that space in the syllabary is occupied by the affricated tsu, so loanwords that originally ended in /t/ or /d/ are given the final vowel /o/ instead. Illiterate Japanese might or might not interpret the English sound of "fight" the same way.

[philipov]

I was taught in Japanese language class that unvoiced vowels don't get entirely deleted. You're still supposed to aspirate them, which affects the pacing of the language, but it's hard to hear it because unvoiced vowels don't really make a sound.