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Japanese differs from English because it uses KANAs as basic pronunciation units, which also can be used to build words directly via certain combinations. Therefore, Japanese better facilitates the separation of underlying cognitive components in spoken language processing, e.g., phonemes, combinations of phonemes, and words with meanings. In this study, we measured the brain activities of subjects by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as they were passively listening to a series of words (word condition), combinations of phonemes without meanings (nonsense word condition), and temporally separated KANAs (separated KANA condition). The three conditions all activated the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, while the detailed location and volume of activated areas varied across the three kinds of stimuli. Listening to the words and separated KANAs activated more areas than did listening to the nonsense words, perhaps owing to different familiarity levels; areas activated in the separated KANA condition were slightly posterior to those activated in the word and nonsense word conditions. Compared with the nonsense word and separated KANA conditions, the word condition also activated part of the right primary motor cortex and part of the left pre-motor cortex, which may be related to articulatory-gestural representations of word access. There were no obvious areas activated in the anterior STG and STS, which have been related to semantic representations of words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]