Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "短い" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 短い in Japanese?

短い is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /mi.dʑi.ka.i/. It means “short.” mi-ji-ka-i, four beats, ending on a bare i that must not fuse with the ka.

mi-ji-ka-i, four beats, ending on a bare i that must not fuse with the ka.

短い /mi.dʑi.ka.i/

mijikai

Four beats, all the same, with the pitch cresting on ji. Three of the four vowels are i or close to it, which gives the word a bright, thin texture — and makes it easy to blur, since the tongue barely moves. Articulating the ka clearly is what keeps the beats separable.

Listen: 短い

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Sound it out

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

ji A soft voiced affricate made with the tongue blade against the palate, lighter than English j, with another short i.

ka A gently released k, then a bright short a — the word's only open vowel.

i The word ends on a naked vowel, arriving straight off the a. Give it its own pulse rather than letting it become a glide.

Hear it in a sentence

短い休みを取りました。

Mijikai yasumi o torimashita.

I took a short break.

Listen: 短い休みを取りました。

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短い休みを取りました includes 休み (ya-su-mi), where the su between voiceless consonants tends to devoice, and 取りました with its tap. Set against the four bright beats of 短い, the sentence gives you a whispered mora and a flap in quick succession.

Where English speakers slip

"mi-JEE-kigh" combines a stressed lengthened second beat with a fused ending. Both need undoing: level all four morae and pulse the final i separately from the ka. The j also tends to come out too hard — Japanese uses the tongue blade broadly against the palate, producing something closer to "zh" than to English "j."