How do you say "soy sauce" in Japanese?

In Japanese, "soy sauce" is 醤油 (shōyu). It is a noun.

Listen to the pronunciation:

Illustration of soy sauce from Noun Town

Pronunciation

醤油 is written in kanji. Romanised as shōyu, it sounds roughly like "shoh-yoo" to an English ear.

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Questions about 醤油

How do you pronounce 醤油?

醤油 is romanised as shōyu. Say it roughly like "shoh-yoo" in English. Each Japanese syllable has even weight, so keep the rhythm steady.

Is 醤油 formal or casual?

醤油 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 醤油 written in Japanese?

醤油 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.