LingoDrop
Japanese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "心" in Japanese?
ko-ko-ro, three even beats built on three identical o's.
kokoro
Three beats and one vowel three times over, which strips away any excuse for unevenness. Standard speech leaves the word unaccented, so the pitch steps up after the first mora and holds flat all the way through — a genuinely level contour.
Listen: 心
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
彼は心が優しいです。
Kare wa kokoro ga yasashii desu.
He has a kind heart.
Listen: 彼は心が優しいです。
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彼は心が優しいです ends with 優しい, four morae with a long final i and an s-versus-sh contrast in its middle. Against 心's three flat, identical beats, that adjective introduces both a consonant distinction and a held vowel.
Where English speakers slip
"ko-KO-ro" stresses the middle beat and glides the o's toward w. Freeze the lips so no vowel moves, level the emphasis, and tap once for the r. Because two of the three morae are identical, an English stress pattern here is unusually conspicuous.