Long vowels are vowels that
are said longer than vowels in
induvidual hiragana.
おばさん-(o ba san) aunt
おばあさん-(o baa san) grandmother
The short 'A' in Ba(ば) becomes long by adding あ at the end of that hirigana. An english speaker may equate this with saying ''soo'' or ''uum'' . Remember all hirigana end in vowels, exept ん. So long vowels are made by adding and extra vowel at the end of other hiragana (exept ん). But.. which vowel to add?
Ending in A
+あ
おばあさん-grand mother
Ending in I
+い
おじいさん-(ojiisan) grandfather
Ending In U
+う
すうじ-(suuji) number
Ending In E
+い or え
えいが-(eiga) movie
おんえさん-(oneesan) older sister
Ending in O
+う or お
どうぞ-(douzo) please(kindly)
とおい-(tooi) distant
When written in romaji(english letters) the standerd practice it to put a long mark on top of the vowel (ā,ī,ū,ē,ō)
Sokuon
When a small つ appears in a word, pause at the constenant immediatly after the small つ. For the sake of understanding pronounciation it helps to look at how romaji handles sokuon.
きって-(kitte) postage stamp
*the constenant after the sokuon is doubled*
So it would be said ki(pause)te. The pause is short and somtimes not noticed that is why it is important to say it correctly and clearly.
きて-(kite) -coming(somone)
いち-(ichi) one
いっち-(icchi) comformity
かこ-(kako) past
かっこ-(kakko) parenthesis, braket
Next lesson is about hirigana with 〃 then we will go over yōon!
See you in the next lesson!
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learning Japanese
Randomstarting from kana with vocabulary and more. Just take it slow and learn. If there is any thing that I could do better with teaching please tell me. please excuse bad english if you notice mistakes. (^-^) And new update every Thursday! I will also l...
