How to Pronounce '優しい': Japanese Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce 優しい in Japanese?

優しい is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ja.sa.ɕiː/. It means “kind / gentle.” ya-sa-shi-i, four beats — note the s and sh are different sounds, and the final i is long.

How do you pronounce "優しい" in Japanese?

ya-sa-shi-i, four beats — note the s and sh are different sounds, and the final i is long.

優しい /ja.sa.ɕiː/

yasashii

Four morae, with the last two given to the long vowel. What makes this word distinctive is the sa-shi pairing — two sibilants in a row that must be audibly different — and English speakers, who have both sounds, still tend to blur them when they're adjacent. Keep the beats even and the consonants distinct.

Listen: 優しい

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

ya A y-glide straight into a bright short a, all within one mora. Not "ee-ya."

sa A plain s made with the tongue tip near the teeth-ridge, into an a identical to the first.

shii A different consonant from the sa before it: the tongue blade rises toward the hard palate, producing a softer, higher hiss. Then an i held across two morae. The s-to-sh contrast in consecutive morae is the word's signature.

Hear it in a sentence

田中さんの友達は優しい人ですね。

Tanaka-san no tomodachi wa yasashii hito desu ne.

Tanaka's friend is a kind person, isn't she?

Listen: 田中さんの友達は優しい人ですね。

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

田中さんの友達は優しい人ですね contains さん and 友達 before the adjective, and 人 (hi-to) after it with a palatal h. It's a long sentence, and the temptation is to accelerate through the middle to reach the point — but 優しい's long final vowel needs its two counts regardless of how far into the sentence you are.

Where English speakers slip

"ya-sa-SHEE" puts an English stress peak on the end and clips the vowel — losing a mora and adding emphasis simultaneously. Level all four beats and hold the closing i. The other subtle error is starting the word with a two-beat "ee-ya"; ya is a single mora, one gesture from glide straight to vowel.