Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "水" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 水 in Japanese?

水 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /mi.dzɯ/. It means “water.” mi-zu, two even beats. The zu is a buzzed "dz" with completely unrounded lips.

mi-zu, two even beats. The zu is a buzzed "dz" with completely unrounded lips.

水 /mi.dzɯ/

mizu

Two morae of matching length, and in standard Tokyo speech the word is unaccented — the pitch rises from mi to zu and simply stays there, so a following particle rides high rather than dropping. Nothing about it should sound emphatic.

Listen: 水

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Sound it out

mi Lips closed for the m, then a short tight i. Keep it brief — English "me" is roughly twice as long as this mora should be.

zu The consonant is a voiced affricate, closer to the "dz" ending of "kids" than to a plain z, and the vowel is Japanese's unrounded u: lips flat and slightly spread, not pushed forward. Round them and you get an English "zoo" that sounds distinctly foreign.

Hear it in a sentence

水がとても冷たいです。

Mizu ga totemo tsumetai desu.

The water is very cold.

Listen: 水がとても冷たいです。

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水がとても冷たいです is a nice test because 冷たい (tsu-me-ta-i) starts with つ, a single affricate rather than t-plus-s, and ends with a vowel sequence a-i held as two separate beats. So the sentence asks you to keep mizu even, then articulate a genuine tsu, then resist collapsing "ta-i" into an English "tie."

Where English speakers slip

The dominant error is lip-rounding on the u, producing "mee-ZOO." Japanese u is made with the lips flat; rounding it changes the vowel's colour completely. Learners also tend to stress the second beat, turning the word into an English trochee-in-reverse. Both beats are equal, both vowels are short, and the lips never pucker.