Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "へ" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce へ in Japanese?

へ is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /e/. It means “to / toward (pronounced "e").” A single beat, pronounced "e" — the h in the kana is silent when this works as a direction particle.

A single beat, pronounced "e" — the h in the kana is silent when this works as a direction particle.

へ /e/

One mora, unaccented, attached to the preceding noun. Because it's a bare vowel with no consonant, it can be very hard to hear as a separate beat — but it is one, and native speakers give it its full share of time before the verb arrives.

Listen: へ

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Sound it out

e A single pure front vowel like the one in "bed," with no h before it and no glide after it. The kana is the one for "he," but as a particle it loses its consonant entirely — a spelling fossil like the topic particle は.

Hear it in a sentence

これから駅へ行きます。

Kore kara eki e ikimasu.

I'm going to the station now.

Listen: これから駅へ行きます。

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

これから駅へ行きます places へ between 駅 and 行きます. 駅 is two morae (e-ki), so 駅へ gives you e-ki-e: three beats ending on two vowels in a row with no consonant between them. Keeping them distinct without inserting a glottal stop or a y-glide is the exact skill this sentence trains.

Where English speakers slip

The obvious error is pronouncing the h, since the kana clearly says "he." It's silent in this grammatical use. The subtler error is letting the vowel merge with a preceding one — after a word ending in e, learners hear a single long vowel instead of two beats. Keep the count even if the sound is continuous.