Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "あげる" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce あげる in Japanese?

あげる is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.ɡe.ɾɯ/. It means “to give.” a-ge-ru, three even beats — a hard g, a flat "geh," and a single tongue-tap.

a-ge-ru, three even beats — a hard g, a flat "geh," and a single tongue-tap.

あげる /a.ɡe.ɾɯ/

ageru

Rhythmically it is as plain as Japanese gets — three identical slots and an unaccented contour that rises off the first and runs flat. With three different vowels in a row, any unevenness is easy to hear — record yourself and check that the a, e and u all last the same.

Listen: あげる

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Sound it out

a A short bright open vowel to start, with no glottal stop before it and no extra length just because it's word-initial.

ge A hard g as in "get," though many Tokyo speakers nasalise it mid-word into something like "nge." The e is short and stationary — no drift toward "gay."

ru One tap and an unrounded u. By now this ending should be automatic; the tongue does exactly the same thing here as in 見る, する and 食べる.

Hear it in a sentence

友達にプレゼントをあげます。

Tomodachi ni purezento o agemasu.

I'll give a present to my friend.

Listen: 友達にプレゼントをあげます。

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友達にプレゼントをあげます includes プレゼント, six morae (pu-re-ze-n-to), where the pu is prone to devoicing, the re needs a tap, and the ん takes a full beat before the to. English "present" is two syllables; the Japanese version is three times as long, and hearing that difference is half the battle with loanwords.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers deliver "a-GAY-roo," stressing the middle and turning the e into a diphthong. Level the beats, freeze the tongue during the e, and tap rather than curl for the r. The nasalised g that many native speakers use mid-word is optional, but the plain hard g must at least not be softened into an English "j" before that front vowel.