How to Pronounce 'レストラン': Japanese Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce レストラン in Japanese?

レストラン is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɾe.sɯ̥.to.ɾaɴ/. It means “restaurant.” re-su-to-ra-n, five beats — two taps, a whispered u, and a closing nasal.

How do you pronounce "レストラン" in Japanese?

re-su-to-ra-n, five beats — two taps, a whispered u, and a closing nasal.

レストラン /ɾe.sɯ̥.to.ɾaɴ/

resutoran

Five slots for a word English delivers in three syllables. Two of those extra beats come from Japanese's insistence on breaking up consonant clusters with vowels, and one from the moraic nasal — which together make the loanword nearly twice as long as its English source.

Listen: レストラン

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Sound it out

re The tongue tip touches the ridge once, then a short front e held in one position.

su An ordinary s with a u squeezed between two voiceless consonants, which routinely devoices — so this beat is largely breath.

to A t made on the teeth rather than the ridge, releasing quietly into a stationary short o.

ra A second tap, with the tongue fully returning to rest between it and the first one so the two stay distinct.

n The ん closes the word with a beat of its own, made far back with the mouth open.

Hear it in a sentence

いいレストランで晩ご飯を食べます。

Ii resutoran de bangohan o tabemasu.

I'm having dinner at a good restaurant.

Listen: いいレストランで晩ご飯を食べます。

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

いいレストランで晩ご飯を食べます opens with いい, a long i held for two counts, and includes 晩ご飯 (ba-n-go-ha-n) with two more nasal beats. So the sentence has three moraic nasals and a long vowel before you even reach the verb.

Where English speakers slip

The instinct is to say the English word with a Japanese accent — "RES-t'rant" — which crushes five beats into three. Every mora needs its time, including the whispered su and the final hum. Tap the two r's separately rather than letting them become English approximants, and keep the tempo flat across all five.