Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "男の子" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 男の子 in Japanese?

男の子 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /o.to.ko no ko/. It means “boy.” o-to-ko-no-ko, five beats — four of them the same vowel, all run together without a pause.

o-to-ko-no-ko, five beats — four of them the same vowel, all run together without a pause.

男の子 /o.to.ko no ko/

otoko no ko

Five slots delivered as one continuous unit, four of which share the same vowel. There is no pause at the particle and no accent peak anywhere; the whole phrase behaves rhythmically like a single long word, which is exactly what it has become.

Listen: 男の子

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Sound it out

o A short stationary mid-back vowel opening the phrase.

to The tongue meets the upper teeth and releases without a puff, giving an identical o.

ko A soft k and a third o — completing 男 before the particle arrives.

no The linking particle, joined on with no break at all. An n at the teeth-ridge and a fourth identical o.

ko The final k and o, closing the phrase on the same vowel it has used throughout.

Hear it in a sentence

男の子はよく勉強します。

Otoko no ko wa yoku benkyou shimasu.

The boy studies a lot.

Listen: 男の子はよく勉強します。

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

男の子はよく勉強します contains 勉強 (be-n-kyo-o), four morae with a nasal beat and a long vowel. Against 男の子's five flat identical-vowel beats, that word introduces both a hum and a hold — the sentence swings from maximum monotony to maximum variety.

Where English speakers slip

"oh-TOE-ko no ko" adds stress in the middle, glides the vowels, and inserts a gap before の. Japanese does none of that. Freeze all four o's, keep them identical, and glue the particle on. If a listener can hear where 男 ends and の begins, the phrase is being over-articulated.