Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "嫌い" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 嫌い in Japanese?

嫌い is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ki.ɾa.i/. It means “to dislike (na-adjective).” ki-ra-i, three beats — a single tap in the middle and a final i on its own.

ki-ra-i, three beats — a single tap in the middle and a final i on its own.

嫌い /ki.ɾa.i/

kirai

Three units of the same duration, with a crest in the middle. It pairs directly with 好き (suki) in meaning and, usefully, contrasts with it in sound: 好き is two mostly-voiceless beats, this is three fully-voiced ones.

Listen: 嫌い

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Sound it out

ki A k with palatal colouring before the i, released with no puff, then a short tense vowel.

ra A single brush of the tongue tip on the ridge, then a bright short a. Not a trill and not an English r.

i A compact i as its own final beat, arriving straight off the a with no glide connecting them.

Hear it in a sentence

私は虫が嫌いです。

Watashi wa mushi ga kirai desu.

I don't like bugs.

Listen: 私は虫が嫌いです。

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私は虫が嫌いです has 虫 (mu-shi) with its unrounded u and devoicing-prone i. So a nearly-whispered two-beat noun is followed by a clearly-voiced three-beat adjective — a good demonstration of how much voicing varies while timing does not.

Where English speakers slip

"kee-RYE" stretches the opening vowel and fuses the last two morae into an English diphthong. Halve the i, tap once, and pulse the closing a and i apart. Learners also confuse this with きれい ("pretty") in speech; the two differ in both vowels and rhythm, so precision matters.