How do you say "music" in Japanese?

In Japanese, "music" is 音楽 (ongaku). It is a noun pronounced "oh-n-gah-koo".

Listen to the pronunciation:

Illustration of music from Noun Town

Pronunciation

音楽 is written in kanji. Romanised as ongaku, it sounds roughly like "oh-n-gah-koo" to an English ear.

Example sentence

音楽はどこにありますか?

Ongaku wa doko ni arimasu ka?

Where is the music?

Usage notes

Ongaku (音楽) is the Japanese word for music. This noun appears in everyday contexts across homes, offices, schools, and public spaces.

Related words

Curated by Callan Ratcliffe

Practice 音楽 and hundreds more Japanese words in the game.

Buy on Steam

Questions about 音楽

How do you pronounce 音楽?

音楽 is romanised as ongaku. Say it roughly like "oh-n-gah-koo" in English. Each Japanese syllable has even weight, so keep the rhythm steady.

Is 音楽 formal or casual?

音楽 is a neutral, everyday word that works in both casual and polite speech. The level of formality comes from the sentence structure around it, not from the word itself.

How is 音楽 written in Japanese?

音楽 is written using kanji. Kanji characters carry the core meaning; any hiragana or katakana that follow show grammatical endings.

This word is part of the vocabulary taught in the Japanese language learning game Noun Town, where words are introduced through play rather than memorisation.