Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "行く" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 行く in Japanese?

行く is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /i.kɯ̥/. It means “to go.” i-ku, two beats, and that final u is normally whispered — it can sound like the word ends on a puff of air.

i-ku, two beats, and that final u is normally whispered — it can sound like the word ends on a puff of air.

行く /i.kɯ̥/

iku

Equal time for both units, with the melody dropping after the first. The rhythmic point is that a whispered mora still occupies its full time slot: even when the u is inaudible, native speakers spend the beat on it, and a word cut short after the k sounds clipped.

Listen: 行く

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

Sound it out

i A short tense vowel beginning the word cleanly. It carries the pitch peak but stays brief.

ku A quiet unaspirated k into the unrounded u. At the end of an utterance, after a voiceless consonant, this vowel routinely devoices, so what's left is a soft breathy release.

Hear it in a sentence

公園に行きましょう。

Kouen ni ikimashou.

Let's go to the park.

Listen: 公園に行きましょう。

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

公園に行きましょう turns it into 行きましょう, six morae ending in a long o. Between the first ki and the ma, that i is again a devoicing candidate, so the middle of the verb can go breathy while the ending holds a long vowel. It's a nice illustration of Japanese doing two opposite things to duration within one word.

Where English speakers slip

The standard English version is "EE-koo" — a long first vowel, a rounded second, and a stressed opening syllable. Every element needs adjusting: shorten the i, flatten the lips for the u, soften the k so no air puffs out, and then let the final vowel go voiceless. Native speakers barely voice it, but they never rush past it.