LingoDrop
Japanese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "お茶" in Japanese?
o-cha, two beats — the polite お is a full mora and "cha" is a single one.
ocha
Both beats take the same time, with the crest on the first. The prefix has become inseparable from this word — nobody says just ちゃ — so the two beats function as a single unit and should be delivered with no gap between them.
Listen: お茶
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
お茶をお願いします。
Ocha o onegaishimasu.
Tea, please.
Listen: お茶をお願いします。
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お茶をお願いします contains two お prefixes, one on 茶 and one on 願い, and each is a full beat. お願いします itself is seven morae with a vowel pair in the middle (ga-i) that must not fuse. The whole request runs to eleven beats with no pause anywhere.
Where English speakers slip
"OH-cha" glides the prefix and stresses it, then delivers a heavy English ch. Freeze the o, keep both beats equal, and lighten the affricate — Japanese ch has noticeably less aspiration. Learners who know the word from tea shops often also lengthen the final a, which has no length mark.