Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "お風呂" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce お風呂 in Japanese?

お風呂 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /o.ɸɯ.ɾo/. It means “bath / bathroom.” o-fu-ro, three beats — and the "fu" uses both lips, like blowing out a candle, not teeth on lip.

o-fu-ro, three beats — and the "fu" uses both lips, like blowing out a candle, not teeth on lip.

お風呂 /o.ɸɯ.ɾo/

ofuro

Three units of the same length, and the prefix is one of them. Learners routinely treat お as a grace note and deliver two beats, which is a third short — it carries exactly as much time as the ふ or the ろ.

Listen: お風呂

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Sound it out

o The polite prefix as a full beat: a short stationary mid-back vowel.

fu The upper teeth never touch the lower lip here. Bring the two lips close together and let air pass between them — a soft, breathy sound quite unlike English f. The u that follows is unrounded.

ro One tap of the tongue tip on the ridge, then a short o. No trill, no curl, no lip rounding.

Hear it in a sentence

夜にお風呂に入ります。

Yoru ni ofuro ni hairimasu.

I take a bath at night.

Listen: 夜にお風呂に入ります。

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夜にお風呂に入ります uses 入ります with its vowel pair (ha-i), and 夜 (yo-ru) with a tap. So the sentence contains two taps and a bilabial fricative — the three consonants English speakers most consistently substitute for their own.

Where English speakers slip

Nearly everyone puts their teeth on their lip for the ふ, producing "o-FOO-ro" with an English f, a rounded u and stress in the middle. Take the teeth out of it entirely and use both lips. Then flatten the u and level the three beats — the prefix included.