Learn Japanese Today

Are you ready for this week’s word? You think you are, but you’re not.

雰囲気

Reading: ふんいき (funiki)

Definition: Atmosphere (of a situation), mood. This is generally used as a broadened use of kanji, meaning feeling, to apply to a setting or situation. For example, you might say an awkward date had a henna funiki (weird atmosphere) or a restaurant had ii funiki (good atmosphere).

I’m calling special attention to this word today because, of the Japanese people I’ve talked to, the general agreement is that funiki is the most often mispronounced word by foreigners. I know one of our favorite things about Japanese is that even the most complicated words are blissfully easy to pronounce once you know the sounds, except for this one.

Most gaijin read this word and say it how they say any other word fun-i-ki. That’s where the problems start. This isn’t one of those stereotypical easy to pronounce words. It’s a toughy. To try to phoeneticize it, the actual way it’s said goes something like fu-in ki. I don’t know how to describe it better. When Japanese people say it, it sounds like the n comes both before and after the i, but not in the way that would sound in English. Ask a Japanese friend to say it for you, I can’t describe it well enough.

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