Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "見える" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 見える in Japanese?

見える is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /mi.e.ɾɯ/. It means “to be visible / can see.” mi-e-ru, three beats — the i and e are separate morae, so it never sounds like "me-eh-ro" run together.

mi-e-ru, three beats — the i and e are separate morae, so it never sounds like "me-eh-ro" run together.

見える /mi.e.ɾɯ/

mieru

Peak on the middle mora, and three slots of matching size. The i-e junction carries the whole rhythmic difficulty: fuse them and you get a two-beat word, which is a different rhythm from the one Japanese listeners expect for this verb.

Listen: 見える

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Sound it out

mi Lips closed, then a short tense i. About half the length English gives "me."

e A bare front e as its own beat, following the i with no glide between. English inserts a y-sound in this position automatically; Japanese does not.

ru One brief contact of the tongue tip with the ridge, then the unrounded u of the dictionary ending.

Hear it in a sentence

彼は元気そうに見えます。

Kare wa genki sou ni miemasu.

He looks well.

Listen: 彼は元気そうに見えます。

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

彼は元気そうに見えます includes 元気 (ge-n-ki), three morae with a nasal in the middle, and そう, a long o worth two beats. So before the verb arrives you've already had to hold a nasal and hold a vowel — and then 見えます asks you to keep two vowels apart instead. Three different length skills in one sentence.

Where English speakers slip

"MEE-yeh-roo" is the typical output — a stretched first vowel, an inserted y-glide, and a rounded rhotic ending. Shorten the i, put nothing at all between it and the e, tap once for the r, and spread the lips for the u. The y-glide is the subtlest of these and the hardest to hear yourself doing.