Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "高い" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 高い in Japanese?

高い is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ta.ka.i/. It means “expensive / high.” ta-ka-i, three beats — the ka and i stay separate, so it never rhymes with English "sky."

ta-ka-i, three beats — the ka and i stay separate, so it never rhymes with English "sky."

高い /ta.ka.i/

takai

Two short beats and a bare i, all the same size, with the pitch cresting on ka. This is the same rhythmic template as 若い and 長い — two short beats plus a bare final i — and once it's automatic, a whole family of adjectives falls into place at once.

Listen: 高い

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Sound it out

ta Dental t into a short bright a, released quietly with no aspiration.

ka A soft k into a second a of exactly the same quality. Two matching vowels — don't let English differentiate them.

i A stand-alone i, short and tense, counting as a full unit. It follows the a with no consonant and no glide between them.

Hear it in a sentence

このレストランは高いです。

Kono resutoran wa takai desu.

This restaurant is expensive.

Listen: このレストランは高いです。

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このレストランは高いです has レストラン beforehand, six morae with two taps, a devoicing-prone su, and a moraic ん. It's much longer in Japanese than English "restaurant," and delivering all six beats before arriving at the three of 高い is what keeps the sentence's rhythm honest.

Where English speakers slip

"ta-KIGH" fuses the last two morae into an English diphthong and adds a stress peak, leaving two beats instead of three. Separate them deliberately. The other thing English adds is aspiration on both the t and the k — put your hand in front of your mouth and soften each release until you feel nothing.