Hiragana
Table of Hiragana Characters
Table 4. Long Vowels and Double Consonants
This is a general guide and is not exhaustive.
| VOWEL LENGTHENING | Examples |
| To indicate the long ā sound, the letter あ a is added to an a-row syllable. | ああ ā さあ sā etc. |
| To indicate the long ii sound, the letter い i is added to an i-row syllable. | いい ii ちい chii じい jii etc. |
| To indicate the long ū
sound, the letter う
u is added to a u-row
syllable. |
くう kū つう tsū きゅう kyū しゅう shū etc. |
| To indicate the long ee
sound, the letter い
i is added to an e-row
syllable. (Note: Although indicated with an い i, ei is actually a lengthened e sound in pronunciation. The ei pronunciation is preserved only in a few local dialects.) |
せい
sei てい tei へい hei げい gei etc. |
| To indicate the long ō
sound, the letter う
u is added to an o-row
syllable. There are a few exceptional words where the long ō sound is indicated with an お o (for examples, see right). (Note: This site romanises long o as ō. This runs counter to the recent trend to use ou for おう and oo for おお. The reasons for this site's romanisation are: (1) There is no distinction in pronunciation between おう ou and おお ō. The two can thus be written ō without anything being lost. (2) As well as the long ō sound, おう is also used to write the true ou sound found in words like 追う 'to chase, pursue'. This difference needs to be preserved.) |
こう
kō そう sō ごう gō ちょう chō じょう jō びょう byō etc. Long ō using お: とおい tōi 'far' とおり tōri 'road' おおきい ōkii 'big, large' こおり kōri 'ice' etc. |
| Sometimes drawing out of a vowel sound can be indicated with a swung dash 〜 or a reduced size vowel plus 〜. | あ〜
ā 'aah!' なぁ〜 nā (particle at end of sentence). |
| CONSONANT DOUBLING | |
| Doubling of stop consonants is indicated with a small tsu
っ. |
かった
katta 'bought/won' はっとり Hattori (name) かっぱ kappa 'kappa' くっきり kukkiri 'clear(ly)' etc. |
| Doubling of nasal consonants is indicated with
an ん n.
|
あんまり
anmari 'not very' ほんのり honnori 'faintly' etc. |
See also....
