Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "しかし" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce しかし in Japanese?

しかし is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɕi̥.ka.ɕi̥/. It means “however.” shi-ka-shi, three beats — the first and last vowels both tend to whisper, leaving mostly hiss.

shi-ka-shi, three beats — the first and last vowels both tend to whisper, leaving mostly hiss.

しかし /ɕi̥.ka.ɕi̥/

shikashi

Three slots, two of them typically voiceless. It's a striking demonstration that duration and voicing are independent: a native しかし is largely inaudible as vowels, yet occupies exactly as much time as any other three-mora word.

Listen: しかし

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Sound it out

shi A slender, high-placed hiss with an i that devoices before the following voiceless k — so the word can open on almost pure friction.

ka The k is released without a puff, opening onto a bright short a, the word's only reliably voiced beat.

shi The same hiss again, and at the end of a word this i devoices too. The word therefore begins and ends on breath with a vowel in the middle.

Hear it in a sentence

この本は高いです。しかし、面白いです。

Kono hon wa takai desu. Shikashi, omoshiroi desu.

This book is expensive. However, it is interesting.

Listen: この本は高いです。しかし、面白いです。

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

この本は高いです。しかし、面白いです。 places the connective at the head of the second sentence. 面白い after it is five morae ending on a bare i. So a word made mostly of whispered hiss is followed immediately by a long, fully-voiced adjective — a big shift in texture with no change in tempo.

Where English speakers slip

Beginners voice everything: "SHEE-ka-shee," with stretched vowels and stress on the front. Devoicing is standard here, not sloppy. Let both i vowels drop out of voice, keep the ka short, and hold the three-beat timing. A fully-voiced しかし sounds like it's being read from a page.