How to Pronounce 'ありがとうございます': Japanese Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce ありがとうございます in Japanese?

ありがとうございます is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.ɾi.ɡa.toː.ɡo.za.i.ma.sɯ̥/. It means “thank you.” a-ri-ga-to-o go-za-i-ma-su: ten even beats, with a flapped r and a long "too" you must actually hold.

How do you pronounce "ありがとうございます" in Japanese?

a-ri-ga-to-o go-za-i-ma-su: ten even beats, with a flapped r and a long "too" you must actually hold.

ありがとうございます /a.ɾi.ɡa.toː.ɡo.za.i.ma.sɯ̥/

arigatou gozaimasu

Count ten morae: a-ri-ga-to-o-go-za-i-ma-su. The long o in とう swallows two of them, and everything else takes exactly one. The word ありがとう on its own carries an accent early — a drop after ri, giving a small fall rather than a rise — but the more useful discipline for a beginner is simply refusing to let any one mora grow longer or louder than the rest.

Listen: ありがとうございます

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Sound it out

a Open the mouth cleanly on a bright a. This first beat is short — resist starting the phrase with a drawn-out "aah."

ri The tongue tip taps the ridge behind the upper teeth once and springs away. It is the same motion as the middle of American "butter," not an English r (no lip rounding, no curled tongue) and not an l (no sustained contact).

ga Hard g at the start of this mora, though many speakers nasalise it slightly here. The a stays open and unreduced.

tou A dental t into an o that is held for two beats. In romaji the second letter looks like a u, but it isn't pronounced as one — it just marks length.

go Begins the second word; keep the transition seamless so the phrase stays one rhythmic unit rather than two separate words.

za Voiced s — buzz it. English speakers who let this slide into a plain "sa" turn the polite ending into something odd.

i Its own beat again. Say za, stop, say i: the syllable count is preserved by keeping them apart.

ma Light m, open a, no lengthening even though it's near the end of a long phrase.

su Trails off voiceless, so the polite ending sounds like a soft "-mass."

Hear 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.

Listen: 手伝ってくれてありがとうございます。

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

手伝ってくれてありがとうございます front-loads a geminate: 手伝って has a small っ, which means a full silent beat with the tongue already in position before the t releases. Getting that hold right before you even reach the thank-you is good practice, because the sentence then asks you to hold a long vowel in とう a moment later — two different kinds of length in one breath.

Where English speakers slip

The English version everyone arrives with is "arigato" — four syllables, a stress on "GA," and a short final o, as if it rhymed with "potato." Japanese wants five morae in the word itself with the o held double-length, and no stress peak on ga. The other giveaway is the r: substituting an English r turns ari into something a native listener has to decode. Tap once and move on.