Japanese text to speech with native voices
Eight Japanese speakers, from calm narration to anime-style delivery. Paste kanji, kana or mixed text - hear it free, pay per character.
Try it free →150 free credits on signup · no subscription, pay per character
Hear the difference
The same Japanese sentence, twice. Morioki is a Japanese speaker; Aria reads Japanese with an English accent - pitch accent and mora timing are what separate them.
The Japanese voices
All 8 run on the ElevenLabs tiers: Enhanced at 90 credits / 1,000 characters (≈ $0.19 per minute of speech) and Premium at 180 (≈ $0.37) for the most natural result. The OpenAI Standard tier reads Japanese too at 50 credits, with 6 delivery styles. Browse all 106 voices →
Why a native Japanese voice matters
Japanese is the hardest test for TTS because reading is interpretation: the same kanji has different readings by context (生 alone has over a dozen), and correctness of pitch accent decides whether 箸 is chopsticks or 橋 a bridge. Native voices resolve readings from context and keep the even mora rhythm - Japanese syllables carry equal length, a pattern English-trained voices flatten into stress-timed English rhythm.
Six voices speak standard Japanese (標準語) with Tokyo-register pitch: Morioki is calm and measured, Kyoko warm and clear, Kuon bright and cute in the register anime and character work call for, Otani a mature male narrator, Hinata younger and energetic for social clips, Kohei husky and warm. Two carry regional colour - Ishibashi from Kanto and Satomi from Kyushu. Since Japanese text runs dense, note that billing is per character: a thousand Japanese characters carry roughly twice the words of a thousand English ones.
How it works
Paste your text
Up to 20,000 characters - about 20 minutes of speech. Paste Japanese text and the app detects the language and puts the Japanese voices first.
Pick a voice
Every voice has a free sample in its own language - audition before spending a credit.
Play & download
Ready in seconds. Listen in the browser or download the MP3; clips stay in your history for 90 days.
Frequently asked questions
Does it read kanji with the correct readings?
Yes - readings are resolved from context (今日 as きょう in dates, 人 as ひと or じん as the compound requires). For rare proper names you can write the reading in kana to force it.
Is there a voice for anime or character work?
Kuon is the closest - a bright, cute female voice from the characters-and-animation category of the library. The rest are narration and conversation voices. All are stock library voices; Speecho does not clone or imitate specific actors or characters.
Is billing different for Japanese characters?
No - billing is per character regardless of script, and Japanese is compact: 1,000 characters of Japanese carry considerably more content than 1,000 characters of English, so per word it is one of the cheapest languages to voice.
Which voice suits long narration?
Morioki and Otani - both measured, consistent over long passages, on the Premium tier for the most natural result. Kyoko suits friendly explainers; Hinata and Kuon are at home in short, energetic clips.
Give your Japanese text a voice
Preview every voice free - pay only for the characters you convert.
Try Japanese text to speech →