Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "夫" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 夫 in Japanese?

夫 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ot.to/. It means “husband.” o-t-to, three beats — the middle one is a full beat of silence with the tongue already in place.

o-t-to, three beats — the middle one is a full beat of silence with the tongue already in place.

夫 /ot.to/

otto

Three slots, one of which is nothing at all. English writes doubled consonants without doubling their duration, so "otto" reads as two syllables; Japanese measures three. Count the silence as a beat and the word roughly gains half its length.

Listen: 夫

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Sound it out

o A short stationary mid-back vowel to open, with no glide.

t (small っ) The geminate: set the tongue tip against the teeth at the end of the o and hold it there, blocking the air completely, for a whole beat. This is measurable silence, not a harder t.

to The release into a second o matching the first. The burst out of the held closure is what makes the preceding silence audible.

Hear it in a sentence

彼女の夫は医者です。

Kanojo no otto wa isha desu.

Her husband is a doctor.

Listen: 彼女の夫は医者です。

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彼女の夫は医者です contains 医者 (i-sha), two morae with a palatal hiss, and ends with the devoiced です. Against those light, quick beats, the held stop in 夫 should stand out as a genuine gap in the sound.

Where English speakers slip

"OTT-oh" — the Italian number — is a surprisingly close trap, but English speakers usually produce something even shorter, with the doubled t as a single emphatic tap. Hold the closure until a listener notices the gap, and keep both o's short, flat and identical.