How do you say "play" in Japanese?

In Japanese, "play" is やる (yaru). It is a verb pronounced "yah-roo".

Listen to the pronunciation:

Pronunciation

やる is written in hiragana. Romanised as yaru, it sounds roughly like "yah-roo" to an English ear.

Example sentence

彼女は公園でやります。

Kanojo wa kouen de yarimasu.

She to play (a sport)s in the park.

Usage notes

やる means to play (a sport) in Japanese. This is an everyday verb that learners encounter early. Mastering its masu form (やります) and te-form opens up many sentence patterns.

Related words

Curated by Jack Ratcliffe

Practice やる and hundreds more Japanese words in the game.

Buy on Steam

Questions about やる

How do you pronounce やる?

やる is romanised as yaru. Say it roughly like "yah-roo" in English. Each Japanese syllable has even weight, so keep the rhythm steady.

Is やる formal or casual?

やる is the plain (dictionary) form, used in casual speech and in dictionaries. For polite situations, verbs take a different ending, typically -masu. In Noun Town the game always shows the dictionary form.

How is やる written in Japanese?

やる is written using hiragana. Hiragana is the basic Japanese syllabary used for native words and grammatical elements.

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.