LingoDrop
Japanese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "母" in Japanese?
ha-ha, two identical short beats — and both h's are soft, nothing like a laugh.
haha
Two slots built from the same mora twice, with the pitch high on the first and falling on the second. Because both halves are identical in segments, only the melody distinguishes them — and the durations must stay matched, which English resists doing with repeated syllables.
Listen: 母
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
母は料理がとても上手です。
Haha wa ryouri ga totemo jouzu desu.
My mother cooks very well.
Listen: 母は料理がとても上手です。
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母は料理がとても上手です contains 料理 (ryo-o-ri), three morae packing a palatalised r-mora, a long vowel and a tap, and 上手 with another long o. So a very simple two-beat word opens a sentence full of comparatively difficult ones.
Where English speakers slip
The knee-jerk version is "HA-ha" as in English laughter — a punched first syllable and a weakened second. Both beats should be equally short and equally soft, with the h barely more than a shaped exhalation. Learners also sometimes pronounce the word as "haha" with an English a; the Japanese vowel is brighter and further forward.