Small letter, large impression: A little bit ‘tsu’ makes all of the distinction

The finish of the yr is at all times a great time to replicate on the small issues in life, these issues we usually take as a right however actually make a distinction. One of them, for any consumer of Japanese on the market, is the small model of the kana letter tsu — っin hiragana,ッin katakana — and the various issues we do with it frequently.

So right here’s to you, my little tsu.

One of essentially the most intriguing issues about this letter is its versatile pronunciation. A small tsu signifies what linguists name a geminate, or lengthy consonant. That means, in contrast to most different letters within the kana syllabary, っ doesn’t have a single particular studying. Instead, its customers’ handbook reads one thing like this: shorten the previous vowel barely, then begin with the sound of the next consonant. The technical time period for this in Japanese is 促音 (sokuon, geminate).