Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "天気" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 天気 in Japanese?

天気 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /teŋ.ki/. It means “weather.” te-n-ki, three beats — the nasal in the middle is a full beat and comes out as "ng" before the k.

te-n-ki, three beats — the nasal in the middle is a full beat and comes out as "ng" before the k.

天気 /teŋ.ki/

tenki

Three slots, one with no vowel in it. English reads two syllables and delivers two beats, cutting the word by a third. The middle nasal is doing real timing work here, not just linking the two audible syllables.

Listen: 天気

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Sound it out

te Dental t, released without aspiration, into a short front e held in one position.

n Pure nasal, no vowel, one beat long. Because a k follows, the back of the tongue rises to the soft palate, so this ん is produced like the ng in "sing" — hum it and hold it before releasing.

ki A k with palatal colouring before the i, then a short tense vowel. The release out of the held nasal should be clean.

Hear it in a sentence

明日の天気はどうですか。

Ashita no tenki wa dou desu ka?

What's the weather like tomorrow?

Listen: 明日の天気はどうですか。

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明日の天気はどうですか contains 明日 (a-shi-ta) with its devoicing-prone middle vowel, and どう with a long o held for two counts. So within one question you have a whispered mora, a nasal mora and a doubled vowel — three separate ways Japanese uses beats that English wouldn't count.

Where English speakers slip

"TEN-kee" in two syllables is the standard version, with the n treated as a syllable-closing consonant and a long stressed first vowel. Hum the nasal for its own beat, make it the velar "ng" variety since a k follows, and keep both vowels short — English "key" is roughly twice the length of the Japanese ki.