Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "働く" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 働く in Japanese?

働く is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ha.ta.ɾa.kɯ̥/. It means “to work.” ha-ta-ra-ku, four even beats with three identical a's and one tap in the middle.

ha-ta-ra-ku, four even beats with three identical a's and one tap in the middle.

働く /ha.ta.ɾa.kɯ̥/

hataraku

Four morae with the same vowel in three of them, which makes any English-style reduction painfully obvious. Standard speech is unaccented, so the pitch rises after the first mora and stays level to the end. Three identical a's, three identical durations — the word should sound almost metronomic.

Listen: 働く

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

Sound it out

ha A soft breath of h into a bright short a. Gentler than the English h in "hat."

ta Dental t, quietly released, into an identical a. No aspiration, no vowel change.

ra One brief contact of the tongue tip and away, then the third a. Never trilled, never sustained — a single strike.

ku A light k into the unrounded u, which devoices at the end of the word and leaves the verb finishing on breath.

Hear it in a sentence

私は病院で働いています。

Watashi wa byouin de hataraite imasu.

I work at a hospital.

Listen: 私は病院で働いています。

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

私は病院で働いています uses 働いて, and includes 病院 (byo-o-i-n): a palatalised b, a long vowel, a bare i and a moraic nasal, all in four beats. English "hospital" gives no preparation for this. Placing that word before the four flat beats of 働いて makes the sentence a compact tour of Japanese timing.

Where English speakers slip

"ha-ta-RA-koo" is what usually emerges: a stressed third beat, an English r, and a rounded final vowel. Because there are three identical a's, English speakers instinctively differentiate them — that's precisely what to avoid. Keep all three the same, tap once for the ra, and let the ku fade out unvoiced.