Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "たぶん" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce たぶん in Japanese?

たぶん is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ta.bɯɴ/. It means “maybe / probably.” ta-bu-n, three beats — flat lips on the u and a full beat of hum at the end.

ta-bu-n, three beats — flat lips on the u and a full beat of hum at the end.

たぶん /ta.bɯɴ/

tabun

One unit in three carries no vowel. Adverbs like this are grammatically light but rhythmically full — the ん is not an afterthought attached to bu, it's a third of the word's duration, and dropping it makes the word sound clipped.

Listen: たぶん

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Sound it out

ta Dental t, released quietly, into a bright short a.

bu A clean b, then the unrounded u — the lips open from the closure into a spread position rather than a pursed one.

n The moraic nasal, a whole beat of resonance made far back in the mouth with the lips apart.

Hear it in a sentence

たぶんあなたの言う通りです。

Tabun anata no iu toori desu.

Maybe you're right.

Listen: たぶんあなたの言う通りです。

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たぶんあなたの言う通りです has 通り (to-o-ri) with a long o, and 言う, whose two vowels often fuse into a long "yuu." So the sentence contains a nasal beat, a held o and a fused vowel pair — three different ways Japanese fills time that English wouldn't measure.

Where English speakers slip

"TAH-boon" rounds the u, stresses the first beat, and reduces the nasal to a syllable-closing consonant. Spread the lips, level the emphasis, and hum the ん for a full count. The b itself is fine — it's one of the few consonants that transfers directly from English.