Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "女の子" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 女の子 in Japanese?

女の子 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /on.na no ko/. It means “girl.” o-n-na-no-ko, five beats — a full beat of humming in second position, then three quick morae.

o-n-na-no-ko, five beats — a full beat of humming in second position, then three quick morae.

女の子 /on.na no ko/

onna no ko

Five slots, one of them vowel-less. The phrase is the direct counterpart of 男の子 and has the same beat count, but it gets there differently: one long nasal instead of an extra vowel. Both take exactly five counts.

Listen: 女の子

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Sound it out

o A short stationary mid-back vowel to open.

n A held nasal filling a whole beat, with the tongue already at the teeth-ridge because a na follows.

na The release out of the hum, into a bright short a.

no The linking particle attached with no gap. An n at the ridge and a short o.

ko A soft k and a final o, matching the one in the particle before it.

Hear it in a sentence

女の子は歌が上手です。

Onna no ko wa uta ga jouzu desu.

The girl sings well.

Listen: 女の子は歌が上手です。

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女の子は歌が上手です includes 上手 (jo-o-zu) with its long o. So the sentence pairs a held nasal at the start with a held vowel near the end — the same idea of extra duration realised through completely different sounds.

Where English speakers slip

"OH-na no ko" drops the geminate nasal to a single n, losing a beat, and stresses the opening. Hum the middle nasal long enough to be counted, keep the o's short and level, and attach の without a pause. The result should be five beats delivered in one breath, with no internal boundaries.