LESSON3

ku kya kyu kyo

sa shi su se so sha shu sho

ta hi su e to cha chu cho

na ni nu ne no ya nyu nyo

ha hi he ho hya hyu hyo

ma mi mu me mya myu myo

yu yo

ri ru re rya ryu yo

wa Wo

ga gu ge go gyu ..gyo
za ji ZU ze ZC

da di du de do
:

ba bi b0 bya byu byo

pa pi pu pE po Pya pyu pyo

 ta

2READ ANDWRITE

octopus

song

painful, sore

answer

tomorrow

your home (speaking about somebody else's)

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chi

2READ ANDWRITE

blood

stingy

map

strawberry

small

here and there

as
 tsu

2READ ANDWRITE

desk

hot

socks

rst day of the month

skeleton

police

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fi
te

2READ ANDWRITE

enemy

subway

vertical writing

commuter (bus, train, subway) pass

usually

reserved seat

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 to

READ AND WRITE

watch, clock

outside

this year

Sugar

(non-college) student

BEE
younger brother

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 da do

NOTE:The hiragana 5 and are pronounced the same as and but are used much less frequently. To in-
putthesecharacters into a computer, you need to type di or du. (Ji and zu arereserved for U and )
 2READ ANDWRITE

free (of charge) exit

university

Please give me .

soon (formal)

(legal) procedure

allowance

It's a lie.

Here you are. (offering someone something)

Sometimes

Where is it?

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 8DOUBLE CONSONANTS
The basic (regular-sized) hiragana is pronounced /tsul, but a small doesn't have its own pronun-
ciation. When you see a small - in a word, it's a signal to hold your breath for one beat in the position
wherc the small is. The effect of the small > is to double the consonant that follows it. For example,
listen to the following words, which mean "the whole family," "magazine," "(postage) stamp," and
"over there" (in that order).

Did you hear the pauses? In writing the romanized transcription, the small is indicated by the addi-
tion of a consonant, e.g., ikka, zasshi, kitte, acchi.
Thesmall representsa full beat.Theword , forinstance,hasthree beats,/i-k-ka/.When
pronouncing a word such as this, hold the rst consonant of the double consonant (the underlined let-
ter) for a full beat. If you don't, it could change the meaning of the word. If /i-k-ka/ were pronounced
with only two beats, as in /i-kal, it would mean "squid" instead of " the whole family.
To get an idea of what is meant here, note the difference in the length of the k sounds in the English
word "placard" (where it is spelled with a "c") and in the phrase "black card." The pronunciation of
the latter resembles the double k sound in
Listen to the audio and practice reading the words below, keeping in mind the following rule:

The small takes one full beat.

5, th... i, ... *7,ItL?...It5L?.

|5, It. olt, *... *, 7...
... 5t, ?.. *o7. h?... 7, tt...t5
7.
There is one hiragana before which the small is never used: n, which will be introduced later.
That is, a small > is never used to create a double "n" sound. For example, onna (woman) is written
as hti, notbo t.
The small > is written the same as the regular-sized. However, in horizontal writing, it's written in
the lower half of its real or imaginary square, while in vertical writing it's written in the right half of the
square. Pay attention to the position of the small when writing vertically and horizontally.

In horizontal writing, you write the

small in the lower half of the
square, while in vertical writing you
write it in the right half of the square.

4|
fi
 REVIEW
Practice writing horizontally.

ta chi tsu te to

1 2
ko to shi ke chi

4
SO to ki t te

chi 1 ka

Practice writing vertically.

te tsu
6

ta te

11 10 9 8 7
do za a de da da

u S C gu di

ZO shi chi chi ga du

ku de

do

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