Syllabic nasal

by Kosuke on July 30, 2018 in - Japanese characters, Hiragana

In this article, let me talk about syllabic nasal!

Syllabic nasal is the sound of the word, 'っ'.

Is that 'つ (tsu)'?

No no.
Please look at the letter well...

It is a little bit smaller than normal Hiragana.

Let's compare:

Normal Hiragana	Syllabic nasal
つ	っ

Can you see the difference?

Let's check how it is used!

Example:

English	Hiragana	Romaji
hat	はっと	hatto
book	ぶっく	bukku
get	げっと	getto
kick	きっく	kikku
fashion	ふぁっしょん	fasshon
lollipop	ろりぽっぷ	roripoppu

If you still don't remember basic Hiragana characters, please check the Hiragana chart below:
  Hiragana chart >>

If you still don't remember ぶ and げ, please remember the dull sound chart below:
  Dull sound >>

If you still don't remember ぽ and ぷ, please remember the P-sound chart below:
  P-sound >>

Regarding the first example in the table, はっと is from the English word, "hat".

Like hat, っ is used for the word you should stop the sound in the middle of the word.

If we remove っ from 'はっと(hatto)', it becomes 'はと(hato)'.
はと means pigeon, and it is a different word.

Right column of the table is written in Japanese alphabetic letter, called "Romaji".
If you are an English speaker, maybe you feel "hat" and "hatto" sounds different.
But Romaji is generally used in Japan to convert Hiragana and Katakana into alphabet.

Please check the article below for further information about Romaji:
  Romaji >>

っ is the small version of つ.
Like that, there are still other small Hiragana characters.

I will explain other small characters called "contracted sound" in the next article.
  Contracted sound >>

I hope this article helps you study Japanese!
Thank you for reading!