Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "馬" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 馬 in Japanese?

馬 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɯ.ma/. It means “horse.” u-ma, two short beats, opening on an unrounded u with the lips flat.

u-ma, two short beats, opening on an unrounded u with the lips flat.

馬 /ɯ.ma/

uma

Two evenly-measured beats, with the pitch high on the first. It makes a useful pair with 海 (umi): same opening vowel, same two-beat shape, and both are words where the lip position at the start does most of the work.

Listen: 馬

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Sound it out

u The unrounded high back vowel, standing alone at the start of the word. English mouths purse for this automatically; keep them flat and slightly spread instead.

ma Lips meet and part, giving a bright short a. The straightforward half of the word.

Hear it in a sentence

馬が速く走っています。

Uma ga hayaku hashitte imasu.

The horse is running fast.

Listen: 馬が速く走っています。

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馬が速く走っています uses 走って with a geminate — ha-shi-t-te, four morae including a beat of held silence — and 速く, whose final u devoices before the h. So the sentence has an unrounded vowel, a whispered one and a silent beat in quick succession.

Where English speakers slip

"OO-ma" rounds and stretches the opening vowel and stresses it. Spread the lips and keep the beat short. Because the word begins on a bare vowel with no consonant to hide behind, the rounding error is more exposed here than almost anywhere else.