- Sokuon
The , meaning "little "tsu". Compare to a full-sized "tsu":
The sokuon is used for various purposes. The main use is for showing a
geminate consonant, which is represented inrōmaji by the "doubling" of the following consonant.Examples:
*Pocky , a Japanese snack food, is written in kana as ポッキー, which is
*:: ポ "po"
*:: ッ "sokuon"
*:: キ "ki"
*:: ーchōon , in romanized Japanese
*:"pokkii", with the "sokuon" representing the doubling of the "k" consonant.
*Matte, the te form of the verb "matsu", is written as 待って, which is:
*:: 待 "ma" (kanji )
*:: っ "sokuon"
*::て "te", with the "sokuon" representing the doubling of the "t" consonant.The sokuon cannot appear at the beginning of a word, before a vowel kana ("a, i, u, e", or "o"), or before kana that begin with the consonants "n, m, r, w," or "y". In addition, it does not appear before voiced consonants ("g, z, d", or "b"), or before "h", except in loanwords.
The sokuon is also used at the end of a sentence, to indicate a
glottal stop (a sharp or cut-off articulation), which may indicate angry or surprised speech.In order to enter the sokuon using a computer or word-processor, there are several methods, such as
xtu,ltu,ltsu, etc., although some word processors (for example Mac OS X'sKotoeri ) will make one if a non-"n" consonant letter is typed twice.In the
International Phonetic Alphabet , the sokuon sound is marked either with a colon-like mark or a doubled consonant:* "kite" (来て, come) - IPA|/kʲite/
* "kitte" (切手, postage stamp) - IPA|/kʲitte/
* "asari" (あさり) - IPA|/asaɺʲi/
* "assari" (あっさり) - IPA|/assaɺʲi/ee also
*
Japanese phonology gives a detailed description of the sound system of Japanese.External links
*sljfaq|sokuon|sokuon
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