Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "草" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 草 in Japanese?

草 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kɯ̥.sa/. It means “grass.” ku-sa, two beats — the first vowel usually whispers, so it can sound like "k'sa."

ku-sa, two beats — the first vowel usually whispers, so it can sound like "k'sa."

草 /kɯ̥.sa/

kusa

Two beats, the first typically voiceless. That whispered mora still takes its full time, so the word has an audible run of friction at the front rather than a consonant cluster — the difference between "k'sa" with a gap and "ksa" without one.

Listen: 草

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Sound it out

ku A quiet k with a u caught between two voiceless consonants — the classic devoicing environment, so this beat is often little more than breath.

sa A short clean s into a bright open a with the jaw down. The word's only reliably voiced beat.

Hear it in a sentence

子供たちが草の上で遊んでいます。

Kodomotachi ga kusa no ue de asonde imasu.

The children are playing on the grass.

Listen: 子供たちが草の上で遊んでいます。

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

子供たちが草の上で遊んでいます includes 遊んで, where the bu becomes a moraic nasal (a-so-n-de). So the sentence has a whispered vowel near the start and a hum near the end, both of which occupy full beats that English wouldn't count.

Where English speakers slip

"KOO-sa" rounds and voices the first vowel and stresses it. Spread the lips, let it devoice, and keep the timing at two even counts. Learners who overcorrect and drop the beat entirely produce a one-syllable "ksa," which is just as wrong in the other direction.