What's new

What does - means

Azarashi

Kouhai
25 Oct 2014
54
5
24
So - appears in texts but its slightly longer and i have no idea what it means .
If there is answer to this in forum plz give me link because i didn't find it.
Maybe stupid but i couldn't find it nether at hiragana or katakana charts plus place i saw it shouldn't have no kanji i guess it means 1 but hoketsutomososuta then there is - and "no" in hiragana don't know what it means but still cant put 1 in there ^^ sorry if this is stupid question.
Thanks for your time :)
 
Last edited:
It's a long vowel marker, mostly used with katakana but sometimes with hiragana (particularly in dialogue). It doesn't have a place on the chart but any textbook/article on katakana ought to explain it (I see it is a bit buried down in the katakana page on wiki).

スタ "suta"
スター "sutaa" ("star").

In your case I guess you're missing a couple of things if you're reading "hoketsutomososuta" from what is almost certainly ポケットモンスター.

ポ not ホ - "po" not "ho". See the little circle?
ッ not ツ - small not big "tsu". (technical term is "gemination", something like a doubling of the following consenant)
ン not ソ - n not so (often difficult to spot for beginners, I know)
So ポケット is not "hoketsuto" but "poketto" = pocket
モンスター is "monsutaa" = monster

Usually shortened, of course, as "pokemon".
 
Thanks and yeah i noticed that circle there and " this thing in front of some hiragana too but not sure exactly how they change cause some like as and az is easy to understand but when there is some random circle at sign you bearly can remember its kinda hard to come up with right pronouncement. And maybe you could suggest me some place where i could talk to Japanese ppl or some online game (free) with Japanese interface and community cause its hard to learn languge if you are not using it and yeah reason why i started play pokemon since i don't rly know other Japanese game except for all nintendo games that i don't rly like.
 
You can just get a deck for Anki.

It shouldn't be difficult to have hiragana and katakana memorized in a week or two if you do 20 minutes or so per day.
 
Back
Top Bottom