Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "父" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 父 in Japanese?

父 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɕi.tɕi̥/. It means “father.” chi-chi, two beats of the same affricate — and the second vowel usually whispers away.

chi-chi, two beats of the same affricate — and the second vowel usually whispers away.

父 /tɕi.tɕi̥/

chichi

Two slots made of the same mora twice, which makes the devoicing easy to hear: beat one is fully voiced, beat two is mostly hiss, and yet they take the same time. It's about the clearest demonstration of devoicing available in a two-syllable word.

Listen: 父

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Sound it out

chi One affricate made with the tongue blade against the palate, lighter and further forward than English ch, with a short tense i.

chi The same mora repeated. At the end of a word its vowel commonly devoices, so the second beat comes out thinner than the first — but no shorter.

Hear it in a sentence

父はたくさん働きます。

Chichi wa takusan hatarakimasu.

My father works a lot.

Listen: 父はたくさん働きます。

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父はたくさん働きます pairs it with たくさん (four morae, with a whispered ku and a closing nasal) and 働きます (six morae with three identical a's). So a sentence that starts with two affricates goes on to test even timing across a long stretch of matched vowels.

Where English speakers slip

"CHEE-chee" fully voices and lengthens both vowels and stresses the first, producing something twice the correct length. Halve both vowels, soften both affricates — English ch pushes far more air — and let the second i devoice. The word should sound light and quick, almost like a whisper with a voiced start.