How do you say "zebra" in Japanese?

シマウマ is romanised as shimauma. Say it roughly like "shee-mah-oo-mah" in English. Each Japanese syllable has even weight, so keep the rhythm steady.

シマウマ 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.

シマウマ is written using katakana. Shimauma combines 縞 (stripe) with 馬 (horse) in a native Japanese compound, describing the zebra's most distinctive feature rather than using a loanword..

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