Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "鍵" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 鍵 in Japanese?

鍵 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ka.ɡi/. It means “key.” ka-gi, two short beats — a soft k and a hard g, with nothing lengthened.

ka-gi, two short beats — a soft k and a hard g, with nothing lengthened.

鍵 /ka.ɡi/

kagi

A pair of identical beats, with the pitch high on the first. Both consonants come from the same region at the back of the mouth, one voiceless and one voiced, so the word's texture depends on keeping that contrast clean while the vowels stay short.

Listen: 鍵

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Sound it out

ka Unaspirated k, then a bright short a. Hold a palm to your mouth and almost nothing should reach it.

gi A strong g into a short tense i. Many Tokyo speakers nasalise this consonant word-medially toward "ngi," which sounds noticeably more idiomatic.

Hear it in a sentence

家の鍵が見つかりません。

Ie no kagi ga mitsukarimasen.

I can't find my house key.

Listen: 家の鍵が見つかりません。

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家の鍵が見つかりません ends with 見つかりません, seven morae with an affricate, a tap and a closing nasal. So a compact two-beat noun is followed by one of the longest verb forms in the course — and the tempo must not change between them.

Where English speakers slip

"KAH-ghee" stretches both vowels and stresses the first. Halve them both, damp the k's release, and try the nasalised g that Tokyo speakers use here. English speakers also tend to harden the g excessively, which makes a light two-beat word sound blunt.