Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "千" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 千 in Japanese?

千 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /seɴ/. It means “thousand.” se-n, two beats, ending on a full count of nasal hum rather than a clipped English n.

se-n, two beats, ending on a full count of nasal hum rather than a clipped English n.

千 /seɴ/

sen

Two morae, of which one is voiceless of any vowel. Compare it directly with 三 (san) and 四 (yon): all three are vowel-plus-ん, all three are two beats, and in all three the second beat is pure hum. Once that pattern clicks, a whole family of Japanese words stops sounding rushed.

Listen: 千

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

Sound it out

se A clean s into a short pure e, the vowel of "set" without any drift toward "say." Keep it brief — this is one beat only.

n A full mora of nasal. At the end of an utterance it's made with the back of the tongue near the soft palate and the mouth still open, so it resonates rather than snapping shut.

Hear it in a sentence

この本は千円でした。

Kono hon wa sen-en deshita.

This book was one thousand yen.

Listen: この本は千円でした。

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

この本は千円でした builds 千円 (se-n-e-n), which is genuinely awkward at speed because a moraic ん is followed immediately by a vowel. Native speakers keep them apart — the ん stays a distinct nasal beat and does not simply become the n of a following "nen." Say se-n-e-n as four honest counts.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers produce "sen" as a single syllable of the same length as the English word, cutting the nasal to a closure rather than a beat. In compounds this compounds: 千円 collapses into two syllables, "sen-en," losing half the word's length. Hold the nasal, and keep the e short and pure so it doesn't drift toward an English diphthong.