Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "うさぎ" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce うさぎ in Japanese?

うさぎ is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɯ.sa.ɡi/. It means “rabbit.” u-sa-gi, three even beats — an unrounded opening vowel and a hard g.

u-sa-gi, three even beats — an unrounded opening vowel and a hard g.

うさぎ /ɯ.sa.ɡi/

usagi

Three beats of matching size, and standard speech leaves the word unaccented, so the pitch steps up after u and runs level. Nothing is lengthened — it's a plain three-count with no held sounds.

Listen: うさぎ

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Sound it out

u An unrounded u opening the word with the lips flat. Before a voiceless s it lightens, so the word can start quite faintly.

sa A short clean s into a bright open a with the jaw down.

gi A solid g into a short tense i. Many Tokyo speakers nasalise this consonant mid-word toward "ngi," which sounds noticeably more idiomatic.

Hear it in a sentence

うさぎは耳が長いです。

Usagi wa mimi ga nagai desu.

The rabbit has long ears.

Listen: うさぎは耳が長いです。

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うさぎは耳が長いです has 耳 (mi-mi), two identical morae, and 長い with a vowel pair at the end that must not fuse into "guy." So the sentence tests matched repetition in one word and vowel separation in another.

Where English speakers slip

"oo-SAH-gee" rounds the opening vowel, stresses the middle, and stretches the final i. Spread the lips, level the beats, and clip the last vowel. Learners also often harden the g into an English one at the start of a stressed syllable — try the nasalised version instead.