Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "開く" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 開く in Japanese?

開く is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.kɯ̥/. It means “to open / to be open (intransitive).” a-ku, two beats — and the final u usually whispers away, so the word can end on breath.

a-ku, two beats — and the final u usually whispers away, so the word can end on breath.

開く /a.kɯ̥/

aku

Both units are short, with the pitch high on the first. This is the intransitive partner of 開ける (akeru), which has three beats — keeping the length difference audible is a grammatical matter, not just a phonetic one, since the two verbs take different sentence structures.

Listen: 開く

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Sound it out

a A bright open vowel with the jaw dropped, occupying a full beat on its own.

ku The k barely disturbs the air, and then comes the unrounded u, which devoices at the end of the word after a voiceless consonant.

Hear it in a sentence

店は開いています。

Mise wa aite imasu.

The store is open.

Listen: 店は開いています。

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店は開いています uses 開いて (a-i-te), where the ku becomes an i and gives you two adjacent vowels to keep apart. So the same verb produces a devoiced final u in one form and a bare vowel mora in another — two very different ways of filling a rhythmic slot.

Where English speakers slip

The giveaway is a fully voiced, rounded "AH-koo" with stress on the front. Shorten the a, spread the lips for the u, and let it devoice. Learners who over-voice this verb also tend to confuse it with 開ける in speech, because a heavily-pronounced aku starts to sound like it has more syllables than it does.