How do you pronounce arigatou gozaimasu in Japanese?

Arigatou gozaimasu (ありがとうございます) is pronounced ah-ree-gah-toh goh-zah-ee-mahs. It is said as ten short, evenly timed beats, called morae: a-ri-ga-to-u go-za-i-ma-su, rather than five English-style syllables. Pitch starts low on the first beat, rises on the second, then stays level and high through the end. The final u in gozaimasu is devoiced, said almost silently rather than as a full oo sound.

Japanese pronunciation guide

How do you pronounce ありがとうございます

arigatou gozaimasu

Thank you (polite, formal)

Arigatou gozaimasu, written ありがとうございます, is pronounced roughly ah-ree-gah-toh goh-zah-ee-mahs. It is said as ten short, evenly timed beats rather than five English-style syllables, and the pitch starts low on the very first beat, rises on the second, then stays level and high all the way to the end. A recorded native voice for Japanese is still in production for the LingoDrop app, so the breakdown below is written to be exact enough to get every sound right on its own.

Free browser voice, quality depends on your device. Hear it read by a real native speaker once that recording ships in the app.

The ten beats of arigatou gozaimasu

Japanese doesn't divide words into syllables the way English does. It divides them into morae: short beats of roughly equal length and equal weight. Say arigatou gozaimasu as ten of these beats, each one the same length, clipped rather than stretched the way English speakers tend to draw out a stressed syllable.

ありがとうarigatou

あ a ah, as in father

り ri quick tapped r, like the tt in butter

が ga ga, as in garden

と to clipped toh, no drawl

う u holds the toh, no new vowel

to + u are one held "oh" sound, not two separate vowels

ございますgozaimasu

ご go goh, clipped

ざ za za, as in zap

い i ee, "zai" together rhymes with eye

ま ma ma, as in mama

す su s plus a breath, the u nearly vanishes

devoiced: barely voiced at all

That flat, rising-then-level pitch is what linguists call heiban, the most common accent pattern in Japanese, and it's the pattern both arigatou and gozaimasu carry in standard Tokyo speech. Unlike English stress, which makes a syllable louder and longer, Japanese pitch accent only changes how high your voice sits. The length and loudness of each beat stay the same throughout. If English is your first language, the instinct is to lean hard on one syllable, the way you'd stress "thank YOU." Resist it. Every beat gets equal weight, only the pitch moves.

Where English speakers usually go wrong

Two things trip up most English speakers on this phrase. The first is stress: English intuition wants to hit one syllable hard, usually the GA or the TOH, the way you'd stress a word like "together." Japanese has no syllable stress at all, only the gentle pitch rise described above, so leaning on a syllable is what makes the phrase sound obviously non-native rather than just accented.

The second is the final u in gozaimasu. In standard Japanese, the vowels u and i are devoiced, said almost silently, when they sit between voiceless consonants like s, k, t, or h, or at the very end of a sentence after one. That's exactly the position of the u in -masu: say the s and let the u disappear into a breath instead of a full "oo." Pronouncing it as goh-zah-ee-mah-soo, with a clear final vowel, is one of the fastest ways to sound like you're reading the word off a page rather than saying it.

In a sentence

手伝ってくれてありがとうございます。

Tetsudatte kurete arigatou gozaimasu.

"Thank you very much for the help."

This is the polite, formal register, the one you'd use with a coworker, a stranger, or anyone you're not on close terms with, which covers most everyday situations in Japan. Drop gozaimasu and you're left with the plain arigatou, reserved for close friends, family, and people clearly younger or lower in status than you. When you're not sure which one fits, especially as a learner, arigatou gozaimasu is the safer default.