Hiragana: Special spellings and pronunciations

(see also sections 2 - 5 on pp. 4 - 5 in the grammar book)

1. Long Vowel Sounds
In some cases, あ, い, う, え or お is not pronounced as such, but as a stretched vowel sound
of previous syllable. For example, おかあさん [okāsan] (mother). In this example, you
pronounce the syllable かあ as [kā], not [ka a]. Such long vowel sound is considered to be a
single syllable itself, thus you have to pronounce かあ twice as long as か （In other word,
おかあさん is a five-syllable word）.
→ Basic rule: あ after [a] ending syllable means stretched [a] sound. Likewise, い after [i]
ending syllable is stretched [i] , う after [u] ending syllable is stretched [u] , え after [e]
ending syllable is stretched [e] , and お after [o] ending syllable is stretched [o]
- あ as long [a] おかあさん [okāsan] (mother)
- い as long [i] おにいさん [onīsan] (elder brother)
- う as long [u] くうき [kūki] (air)
- え as long [e] おねえさん [onēsan] (elder sister)
- お as long [o] おおきい [ōkī] (big)
→ Exceptions: In addition to え, い after [e] ending syllable also means stretched [e]
sound; And as well as お, う after [o] ending syllable also means stretched [o] sound.
Actually, it is even more common to use い or う for stretched [e] or [o] sounds respectively,
when you spell words.
- い as long [e] とけい [tokē] (watch, clock)
- う as long [o] ひこうき [hikōki] (airplane)
Note: Though it is quite common to romanize long [e] sound like [tokei] (とけい), [gakusei]
(がくせい) etc. among most textbooks of Japanese, I don’t use such [ei] to denote [ē] because
it doesn’t reflect the exact sound and thus students can be misguided by the confusing
transcription. So, I use [ē] or [ee] instead in my handout and in the classroom.

2. Double Consonant Sounds

If you see small つ in a word, it means that you don’t pronounce this Hiragana itself, but
double the initial consonant of the following syllable.
eg.) きって [kitte] (postage stamp) きっぷ [kippu] (ticket)
にっき [nikki] (diary) ざっし [zasshi] (magazine, journal)
Note: In Japanese sound system, this “doubled consonant” is considered to be a single syllable
itself. So, the example words above are all considered to be three-syllable words and you have
to pronounce as such.

3. Semivowel Sounds
Such sounds as [cha], [myu] or [sho] are indicated by combining a Hiragana with small や, ゆ
or よ.
きゃ [kya] きゅ [kyu] きょ [kyo]
ぎゃ [gya] ぎゅ [gyu] ぎょ [gyo]
しゃ [sha] しゅ [shu] しょ [sho]
じゃ [ja] じゅ [ju] じょ [jo] and so on.
eg.) きゃく (guest) いしゃ (medical doctor) きょねん (last year)