Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "話" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 話 in Japanese?

話 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ha.na.ɕi̥/. It means “story / talk.” ha-na-shi, three beats — two matching a's and a final vowel that often whispers.

ha-na-shi, three beats — two matching a's and a final vowel that often whispers.

話 /ha.na.ɕi̥/

hanashi

Three beats of matching size, unaccented in standard speech so the pitch steps up after ha and stays level. Two identical a vowels in the first two beats make any English weakening easy to hear.

Listen: 話

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Sound it out

ha A gently shaped breath into a bright short a — much lighter than English h.

na Tongue to the ridge for the n, then a second a identical to the first.

shi A quiet palatal sh with an i that devoices at the end of a word, so the word trails off on friction.

Hear it in a sentence

面白い話を聞きました。

Omoshiroi hanashi o kikimashita.

I heard an interesting story.

Listen: 面白い話を聞きました。

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

面白い話を聞きました contains 聞きました, where the first i sits between two k-like sounds and devoices readily. So the sentence has two whispered vowels — one closing 話, one inside the verb — with fully voiced beats around them.

Where English speakers slip

"ha-NAH-shee" stresses the middle, stretches it, and fully voices a long final vowel. Match the two a's, level the emphasis, and let the closing i drop out of voice. Learners also strengthen the h into the English version, which makes a neutral noun sound emphatic.