Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "ホテル" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce ホテル in Japanese?

ホテル is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ho.te.ɾɯ/. It means “hotel.” ho-te-ru, three even beats — a soft h, a flat "teh," and a tapped final mora.

ho-te-ru, three even beats — a soft h, a flat "teh," and a tapped final mora.

ホテル /ho.te.ɾɯ/

hoteru

Three beats at one tempo, with no stress anywhere. English "hotel" has a strongly stressed second syllable; the Japanese loanword flattens that completely and adds a third beat at the end, so the two words share almost nothing rhythmically.

Listen: ホテル

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Sound it out

ho A light exhalation into a stationary short o — much lighter than the h English gives "hotel."

te A quiet dental t into a short front e that stays in one position. No glide toward "tay."

ru One rapid contact of the tongue tip on the ridge, then the unrounded u — an inserted vowel, since Japanese cannot end a word in l.

Hear it in a sentence

ホテルは海の近くです。

Hoteru wa umi no chikaku desu.

The hotel is near the sea.

Listen: ホテルは海の近くです。

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ホテルは海の近くです contains 海 (u-mi) with its unrounded opening vowel and 近く (chi-ka-ku), whose final u devoices. So the sentence has two flat-lipped u's and one whispered one, alongside the loanword's three even beats.

Where English speakers slip

"ho-TEL" imports the English stress and drops the final vowel. Level all three beats, anchor the e so it doesn't glide, and give the ru a full mora with a single tap and flat lips. The l-to-tap substitution is the other thing to watch — there is no l in Japanese.