Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "よく" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce よく in Japanese?

よく is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /jo.kɯ̥/. It means “often.” yo-ku, two beats — a fixed o and a final u that normally whispers away.

yo-ku, two beats — a fixed o and a final u that normally whispers away.

よく /jo.kɯ̥/

yoku

Short and short, with the melody high on the first. The second beat is often nearly inaudible, which tempts English speakers to drop it; the timing slot stays there regardless, so the word takes two counts even when you can only hear one.

Listen: よく

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

Sound it out

yo The y-glide and the o form one mora together. The vowel stays put rather than drifting toward w the way English "yo" does.

ku A k with no burst of air, then the unrounded u, which devoices at the end of a word after a voiceless consonant.

Hear it in a sentence

よく映画を見に行きます。

Yoku eiga o mi ni ikimasu.

I often go to the movies.

Listen: よく映画を見に行きます。

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

よく映画を見に行きます contains 映画, where the "ei" is pronounced as a long e — so it comes out roughly "eega," three morae. Then 見に行きます stacks short beats. The sentence gives you a whispered vowel at the start, a held one in the second word, and plain short ones after.

Where English speakers slip

"YO-koo" with a diphthongised first vowel and a rounded second is the standard English rendering. Freeze the o, spread the lips for the u, and let that final vowel devoice. Learners who voice it fully also tend to stress the first beat, which makes a small adverb sound like an emphatic declaration.