LingoDrop
Japanese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "回" in Japanese?
ka-i, two beats — a soft k and then a separate i, not the English word "kai" as one syllable.
kai
Two beats made of a consonant plus two adjacent vowels — a shape English fuses automatically. Because this is a counter that attaches to numbers, its two-beat length has to survive being buried inside compounds, where it is even easier to lose.
Listen: 回
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
その映画は一回だけ見ました。
Sono eiga wa ikkai dake mimashita.
I saw that movie only once.
Listen: その映画は一回だけ見ました。
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
その映画は一回だけ見ました shows the counter in its compound form 一回, read "ikkai" with a geminate — i-k-ka-i, four morae including a beat of held silence. The number and counter fuse and produce a doubled consonant, which is very common in Japanese counting.
Where English speakers slip
"kigh" — one syllable with an English diphthong — is the reflex. Separate the a and the i into two pulses. In compounds the other risk is skipping the geminate, so 一回 comes out as "ikai" in three beats instead of four; hold that silence deliberately.