I'm working on the Hiragana alphabet

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

Buntaro said:

the kanji for beauty salon are 美容院. The three kanji cause the word to have three syllables.

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Buntaro said:

The kanji for hospital are 病院. The two kanji cause the word to have two syllables.

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Well, this is not always correct since the reading of a single kanji is not always a single syllable.
e.g.
美作 みまさか: 2 kanji, 4 kana, 4 syllables, 4 morae
病 やまい: 1 kanji, 3 kana, 3 syllables, 3 morae
学院 がくいん: 2 kanji, 4 kana, 3 syllables, 4 morae

Again, mora is more important than syllable in Japanese phonology.

Most dialects of Japanese, including the standard, use morae, known in Japanese as haku (拍) or mōra (モーラ), rather than syllables, as the basis of the sound system. Writing Japanese in kana (hiragana and katakana) is said by those scholars who use the term mora to demonstrate a moraic system of writing.

The number of kana is usually the same as the number of mora, including special mora like 促音 (geminate consonant), i.e., small っ, 撥音（nasal sound), i.e., ん or 長音 (long vowel). The only exception is 拗音(contracted sound), i.e., small ゃ, ゅ, ょ, and ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ, ォ mostly for katakana loan words, as nice gaijin-san wrote. These small kana makes a single mora as a pair with a kana preceding it.

Please check example in my previous post again.

促音(geminate consonant)
きって（切手）: 3 kana, 2 syllables, 3 morae

撥音(nasal sound)
ほん（本）: 2 kana, 1 syllable, 2 morae

長音(long vowel)
そう（僧）: 2 kana, 1 syllable, 2 morae

As you can see, the number of kana and the number of mora are the same.

ちゃ（茶）is "2 kana, 1 mora" because there is one small ゃ in it. The same goes with きょうと (4 kana, 3 morae) and しゅっか (4 kana, 3 morae). しゅんかしゅうとう is "9 kana, 7 morae" because there are two small ゅ in it.

Furthermore, long vowels and short vowels are strictly distinguished in Japanese language. This is important especially for native English speakers who usually don't much care about the length of sound when pronouncing words.
e.g.
そこ soko（底）bottom: 1 kanji, 2 kana, 2 morae
そうこ sōko（倉庫）warehouse: 2 kanji, 3 kana, 3 morae
そこう sokō（素行）behavior: 2 kanji, 3 kana, 3 morae
そうこう sōkō（走行）running: 2 kanji, 4 kana, 4 morae

These words are totally different from each other, but they are all 2 syllables. This is another example where mora is more useful than syllable in Japanese.

Buntaro said:

にっせい; Second-generation Japanese (American)

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Probably you are confusing the two words にっけい(日系) and にせい(二世). While the former means "Japanese descendent" as in 日系アメリカ人 Japanese-American or 日系ブラジル人 Japanese-Brazilian, the latter is "second generation" or "the second" as in エリザベス二世 Elizabeth II.


This is a bit off-topic, but this にっ is the euphonic change of にち. This change occurs before k, s, t and h/f, which changes to "p" because of rendaku.
e.g.
日記: にっき（にち＋き ki）
日誌: にっし（にち＋し shi）
日当: にっとう（にち＋とう tō）
日報: にっぽう（にち＋ほう hō）
cf.
日欧: にちおう (not にっおう)
日南: にちなん
日満: にちまん
日曜: にちよう
日輪: にちりん
日銀: にちぎん
日弁連: にちべんれん

This is the same reason why the -te form and past form of つ ending verbs change to って and った, respectively. て and た are "t".
e.g.
勝つ: 勝ちて --> 勝って, 勝ちた --> 勝った
打つ: 打ちて --> 打って, 打ちた --> 打った

勝ちます doesn't change to 勝っます because ま is "m", not k, s, t or h/f.

Kirby,

Have you heard that Japanese has what I call long and short syllables? I thought I'd give you some examples. Take a look at these two Japanese words.

ここ here; this place

こうこう high school

The word ここ (here; this place) has two syllables. Here are the two syllables separated by a dot:

こ・こ

The word こうこう (high school) also has two syllables, but they are long syllables. Here are the two syllables separated by a dot:

こう・こう

We can say the word ここ has two 'beats' (like musical beats in a song) whereas the word こうこう has four 'beats'. In other words, it takes twice as long to say こうこう as it takes to say ここ.

Japanese people are very sensitive as to when a syllable is long or short, so it is important to always get it right.

とうきょう (Tokyo, modern capital of Japan) (long "to" followed by long "kyo") Let's use a dot to separate the syllables:

とう・きょう

きょうと (Kyoto, ancient capital of Japan) (long "kyo" followed by short "to") Let's use a dot to separate the syllables:

きょう・と

とうきょうと (Tokyo City; the City of Tokyo) (long "to" followed by long "kyo" followed by short "to"). Let's use a dot to separate the syllables:

とう・きょう・と

Confusing, isn't it?

Buntaro said:

Confusing, isn't it?

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It's simply because you stick to "syllable", isn't it?