Japanese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "四" in Japanese?

Q: How do you pronounce 四 in Japanese?

四 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /joɴ/. It means “four.” yo-n, two beats, with the closing nasal held for a full count of its own.

yo-n, two beats, with the closing nasal held for a full count of its own.

四 /joɴ/

yon

Two morae. Japanese has two words for four — yon and shi — and yon is the everyday one precisely because shi collides with the word for death; both are short, but yon's two-beat shape with the trailing hum is the one you'll hear in counting. Give the ん equal time with the yo.

Listen: 四

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Sound it out

yo A y-glide straight into a pure short o. English "yo" tends to drift toward "yow"; Japanese keeps the vowel fixed from beginning to end.

n The moraic ん again, a full beat of nasal resonance with no vowel. Utterance-finally the tongue doesn't have to touch anything — the sound is made with the back of the tongue and the nasal cavity.

Hear it in a sentence

いすが四つあります。

Isu ga yottsu arimasu.

There are four chairs.

Listen: いすが四つあります。

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いすが四つあります uses 四つ (yo-t-tsu), which swaps the ん for a small っ: a silent held beat before the tsu releases. That makes it three morae for what looks like two syllables. It's worth saying 四 and 四つ back to back — same number, completely different rhythmic shapes.

Where English speakers slip

The reflex is "yohn" as one syllable with a diphthongised vowel, and the nasal ends up as a quick closure rather than a beat. Keep the o pure and short, then hum the n for its own count. If your yon and the following word run together with no audible nasal in between, you've swallowed a whole mora.