Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "息子" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 息子 in Japanese?

息子 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /mɯ.sɯ̥.ko/. It means “son.” mu-su-ko, three beats — the middle u whispers away, so it can sound like "mus'ko."

mu-su-ko, three beats — the middle u whispers away, so it can sound like "mus'ko."

息子 /mɯ.sɯ̥.ko/

musuko

The middle unit is typically voiceless, though it still takes its full time. The whispered beat is still timed: a native 息子 has an audible stretch of hiss between the m and the k, not a collapse of the two into a cluster.

Listen: 息子

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Sound it out

mu A lip closure that then spreads for the unrounded u. Do not leave the lips pursed after the m — that's the commonest error in this word.

su Crisp s with a u caught between two voiceless consonants, which is the classic devoicing environment. Expect it to survive as breath rather than voice.

ko Soft k, then a stationary short o with no glide.

Hear it in a sentence

息子はまだ小さいです。

Musuko wa mada chiisai desu.

My son is still little.

Listen: 息子はまだ小さいです。

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

息子はまだ小さいです ends with 小さい, four morae with a long i at the front and a vowel pair at the end. So the sentence pairs a word with a whispered middle against a word with a held opening — different mechanisms, same underlying principle of counting beats.

Where English speakers slip

"moo-SOO-ko" rounds both u's, stresses the middle, and voices everything fully. Spread the lips for both, let the second devoice, and level the emphasis. Learners who round the u's also tend to hear the word as "moose-ko," which is a long way from the light, mostly-whispered native version.