Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "暑い" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 暑い in Japanese?

暑い is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.tsɯ.i/. It means “hot (weather).” a-tsu-i, three beats, with a genuine affricate in the middle and a bare i at the end.

a-tsu-i, three beats, with a genuine affricate in the middle and a bare i at the end.

暑い /a.tsɯ.i/

atsui

Three beats, evenly cut, with the pitch cresting on tsu. The u-to-i transition at the end is unusually hard to hear because both are high vowels; the way to keep the count honest is to make sure the u is genuinely unrounded and the i genuinely front, so the two are audibly different.

Listen: 暑い

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Sound it out

a An open, bright vowel starts things off, with no glottal catch in front of it.

tsu One affricate, not t plus s. Sitting between two vowels makes it slightly easier than word-initially, but the temptation to insert a vowel — "at-soo" — is still strong. The u is unrounded.

i A bare short i as its own beat, following the u directly. The mouth moves from one high vowel to another, so the join is subtle — articulate it deliberately.

Hear it in a sentence

今日はとても暑いです。

Kyou wa totemo atsui desu.

It's very hot today.

Listen: 今日はとても暑いです。

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今日はとても暑いです opens with 今日 (kyo-o), two morae with a long vowel, and closes with the devoiced です. Between them, とても暑い is six short beats. The sentence starts with something held and then never holds anything again — a good tempo contrast.

Where English speakers slip

"AT-soo-ee" splits the affricate, rounds the u, and stretches the final vowel. Fuse the ts into a single release, spread the lips, and clip the closing i to one short beat. English speakers also stress the opening a because it starts the word — Japanese puts no weight there at all.