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Little tsu (っ)
Topic Started: Sep 17 2014, 01:11 PM (82 Views)
Kyuuketsuki
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In Hiragana the Tsu is used to create a double consonant sound. Since almost all of the sounds in Japanese are a consonant + vowel sound (minus あ、え、い、お、う、ん), so to get a double vowel sound (like sokka, ippai, oppai, etc.) we use a small tsu.

*With the Google IME the small tsu is achieved by typing xtsu instead of just tsu. Or you can simply type the consonant of the second syllable twice. If the word you wanted was "oppai," then you would simply type o-p-p-a-i and it would automatically add the small tsu*

そっか - sokka
ちょっと - chotto
もっと - motto
ずっと - zutto
おっぱい - oppai

See how it works? Pretty simple right? Now let's move on to how you pronounce the double consonant sound.

When going to pronounce a word with a small tsu, you want to break up the pronunciation between the two consonants and add a slight pause in between.
Sok-ka
Chot-to
etc

This video gives the same description that I do for the pronunciation but has a voice of it so check it out if you are confused or want an example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVynW7frBig
Edited by Kyuuketsuki, Jul 7 2015, 09:24 AM.
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