Japanese Text to Speech

A Japanese text to speech (TTS) tool converts written Japanese — kanji, hiragana, katakana, or mixed text — into spoken audio using your browser's built-in speech synthesis engine. Paste a sentence like "今日はいい天気ですね" and hear a native-sounding ja-JP voice read it aloud. It is useful for checking pronunciation, building listening comprehension, and hearing how unfamiliar words actually sound before you try saying them yourself.

The voices in the dropdown come from your operating system and browser, not from this site. On macOS and iOS you typically see Kyoko (female) and Otoya (male). On Windows you usually get Haruka, Ichiro, Ayumi, or Sayaka. Chrome and Edge add Google Japanese voices on top. The list updates automatically when your browser finishes loading them, which can take a fraction of a second after the page opens.

Speech synthesis uses voices installed locally on your device, so the quality depends on your operating system and browser combination. Chrome and Edge on desktop generally produce the most natural-sounding ja-JP voices because they ship cloud-backed Google voices. Safari on macOS and iOS uses Apple's Kyoko and Otoya voices, which are also high quality. Firefox typically falls back to your OS voices. If a voice sounds robotic, try a different option in the dropdown — the variation is normal.

Yes. The tool is completely free, requires no sign-up, has no API key, and has no monthly quota. All speech synthesis happens locally in your browser using the Web Speech API, which means there is no server call and no cost per character. You can paste up to ~500 characters at a time and play them as many times as you want.

No. The browser Web Speech API plays audio directly to your speakers but does not expose a download stream, so this tool cannot save the output as MP3 or WAV. If you need a downloadable file, you have to use a paid TTS service such as Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, Amazon Polly, or ElevenLabs, which charge per character. For listening practice and quick pronunciation checks, the browser API is sufficient and avoids the per-character cost.

It depends on the voice. OS-bundled voices like Apple's Kyoko or Microsoft's Haruka work fully offline once they are installed on your device. Cloud-backed voices like Google Japanese on Chrome require an internet connection because the audio is generated on Google's servers. If you need offline playback, pick a non-Google voice from the dropdown.

Browsers do not always label voice gender in the dropdown, so you may need to try the voices to compare. Common reference points: on Apple devices, Kyoko is female and Otoya is male. On Windows, Haruka, Ayumi, and Sayaka are female while Ichiro is male. Google voices typically include both ja-JP-Standard-A (female) and ja-JP-Standard-D (male) variants. Select a voice in the dropdown, play one of the example sentences, and switch until you find the tone you want.