How to Pronounce 'あなた': Japanese Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce あなた in Japanese?

あなた is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.na.ta/. It means “you.” a-na-ta, three identical open "ah" vowels and three identical beats. Nothing gets lengthened.

How do you pronounce "あなた" in Japanese?

a-na-ta, three identical open "ah" vowels and three identical beats. Nothing gets lengthened.

あなた /a.na.ta/

anata

Three morae, all with the same vowel, which makes this an unusually clean demonstration of Japanese's biggest divergence from English: the a in position one, two and three is acoustically the same vowel each time. English would reduce at least one of them to a schwa. Japanese never does — the five vowels keep their quality no matter where they fall.

Listen: あなた

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Sound it out

a A bright, front-ish open vowel, closer to the a of Spanish "casa" than to English "father," and noticeably shorter than either.

na n with the tongue against the teeth-ridge, then the same a as before. The vowel must not change quality just because it's now in the middle of the word.

ta Dental t, released without aspiration, into a third identical a. If your final vowel is weaker or shorter than the first, you've imported English vowel reduction.

Hear it in a sentence

あなたは学生ですか。

Anata wa gakusei desu ka?

Are you a student?

Listen: あなたは学生ですか。

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あなたは学生ですか ends in the question particle か, which stays short and unstressed even though it carries the question. English speakers instinctively raise pitch and lengthen the last word of a question; here the か is just one more even beat, and the questioning work is done by the particle itself rather than by intonation.

Where English speakers slip

The standard English mangling is "a-NAH-ta" with a long stressed middle and a mumbled final vowel — essentially treating it like the name "Anita." Every one of the three a's should be equally short, equally clear, and equally loud. If the last a sounds like the "uh" at the end of "sofa," you've reduced a vowel that Japanese requires you to keep full.