How to Pronounce '新しい': Japanese Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce 新しい in Japanese?

新しい is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.ta.ɾa.ɕiː/. It means “new.” a-ta-ra-shi-i, five beats — three quick a's, a tap, and a long i at the end.

How do you pronounce "新しい" in Japanese?

a-ta-ra-shi-i, five beats — three quick a's, a tap, and a long i at the end.

新しい /a.ta.ɾa.ɕiː/

atarashii

Five morae, and the last two are a single sustained vowel — so the word's back half lasts as long as its front half. Standard speech places a fall late in the word, but what a listener actually keys on is the length. Three short a's, then a long i, is the shape.

Listen: 新しい

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

Sound it out

a The word begins on a bright, short open vowel with no glottal catch. The first of three identical a's.

ta Dental t, released without aspiration, into the second a. The vowel must be the same colour and length as the first.

ra A single bounce off the ridge — no curl, no rounding — and the third a follows. Three matching vowels in a row is unusual even for Japanese.

shii A thin palatal hiss, then an i occupying two whole morae. The doubled letter in romaji is duration, not repetition: one continuous vowel, twice the usual length.

Hear it in a sentence

新しい電話を買いました。

Atarashii denwa o kaimashita.

I bought a new phone.

Listen: 新しい電話を買いました。

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

新しい電話を買いました includes 電話 (de-n-wa), where the moraic ん takes its own beat before the w, and 買いました, where ka-i must stay two beats rather than becoming "kigh." So the sentence gives you a long vowel, a nasal beat and a vowel pair to keep apart, all in one line.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers say "a-ta-RA-shee" — a stress peak on the third beat and a short final vowel — which loses a mora and adds emphasis the word doesn't want. Level the three a's so they're indistinguishable, tap once for the ra, and hold the final i for a full two counts. The word should end long, not end fast.