- 8 Aug 2005
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The small kana are the little modifiers that round out the Japanese phonetic vocabulary of sounds,
The small つ (促音・そくおん・sokuon, also literally called 小さいつ) is used to add an extra mora count to the following consonant sound, but only comes before some of the consonants in Japanese. If that consonant is a plosive (k/g, t/d, b, p) or affricate (ch), it adds a little pause before the sound. If it's a fricative sound (s, sh), it lengthens the amount of time you aspirate and make the sound.
There's also a "long vowel" modifier (超音符・ちょうおんぷ・chōonpu), usually a full sized vowel following a mora with the same body vowel, but with ō the long vowel is marked with a う kana (とう、きょう、ほう、そう、もう、こう、ぼう). When you learn katakana, this will be marked with a straight line (ヤンキー)
The ya-gyou (line of kana starting with 'y'), which only consists of や、ゆ、and よ can all be used to "palatalize," or basically add a 'y' between the consonant and vowel in the kana/mora. Less commonly, small vowels can also be used like this to create sounds that don't appear often in Japanese (usually foreign words written in katakana), like シェル (shell)、ちぇ (che, a sound of consternation)、シェフ (chef)
Put it together and you get words like this. Click on the "listen" icon under the "Japanese" text on the right to hear the words pronounced.
いっぱつ - one shot
おっさん - middle-aged man
はっぴょう - presentation
はっしゃ - departure of train
がっしょう - hands in prayer
うんてんしゅ - driver
The small つ (促音・そくおん・sokuon, also literally called 小さいつ) is used to add an extra mora count to the following consonant sound, but only comes before some of the consonants in Japanese. If that consonant is a plosive (k/g, t/d, b, p) or affricate (ch), it adds a little pause before the sound. If it's a fricative sound (s, sh), it lengthens the amount of time you aspirate and make the sound.
There's also a "long vowel" modifier (超音符・ちょうおんぷ・chōonpu), usually a full sized vowel following a mora with the same body vowel, but with ō the long vowel is marked with a う kana (とう、きょう、ほう、そう、もう、こう、ぼう). When you learn katakana, this will be marked with a straight line (ヤンキー)
The ya-gyou (line of kana starting with 'y'), which only consists of や、ゆ、and よ can all be used to "palatalize," or basically add a 'y' between the consonant and vowel in the kana/mora. Less commonly, small vowels can also be used like this to create sounds that don't appear often in Japanese (usually foreign words written in katakana), like シェル (shell)、ちぇ (che, a sound of consternation)、シェフ (chef)
Put it together and you get words like this. Click on the "listen" icon under the "Japanese" text on the right to hear the words pronounced.
いっぱつ - one shot
おっさん - middle-aged man
はっぴょう - presentation
はっしゃ - departure of train
がっしょう - hands in prayer
うんてんしゅ - driver