LingoDrop
Japanese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "だけ" in Japanese?
da-ke, two short beats — a dental d and a flat "keh," never "kay."
dake
Both halves are twins in length; only the melody separates them, and it starts high. Because this word restricts and limits, English speakers want to emphasise it the way they'd emphasise "only" — but Japanese carries that force in the word itself and delivers it with no extra weight.
Listen: だけ
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
五分だけ待ってください。
Go-fun dake matte kudasai.
Please wait just five minutes.
Listen: 五分だけ待ってください。
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五分だけ待ってください attaches だけ directly to 五分 (go-fu-n), where ふ is the bilabial fricative made with both lips rather than teeth on lip. Then 待って brings a geminate with its held silence. Three quite different things to get right in one short request.
Where English speakers slip
"DAH-kay" stretches the first vowel, stresses it, and diphthongises the second. Both beats are short and both vowels are pure. Anchor your tongue during the e so it cannot travel, and place the d on the teeth with a quiet release rather than on the ridge with a puff.