Konnichiwa. Yuko-sensei desu. This is a sample lesson of my online course
Japanese 1. Right now when you join my email list through the link in the
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you enjoy the lesson. Dewa, Hajimemashou! (Let's begin!)
In the previous lesson we have learned how to pronounce the glide combinations.
For instance milk in Japanese is Gyuunyuu.
and it has two glides in it. One is gyu and the other is nyu.
Here you see two consonants G and n that are not paired with any vowels. When a
consonant is without a vowel and is followed by either "ya" or "yu" or "yo"
that's a glide combination. To pronounce it you have to insert a vowel "i" after
the consonant like this and then try to pronounce the two sounds together. So, for
the first combination you pronounce gi and yu together and go like this.
For the second one you pronounce ni and yu together and then say
Since glide combination takes one beat to pronounce, this word has four beats so
milk in Japanese is gyu u nyu u. Gyuunyuu.
And when you spell glides in hiragana you have to make the "ya" or "yu" or
"yo" in the combination smaller in size. So, gyuunyuu looks like this in
Hiragana. Gyu with small "yu," U, and Nyu with small "yu" and U.
Gyuunyuu. So that was a review of glides that we
have learned in the previous lesson. Today we are going to learn how to
pronounce a word like this one. Nissan. You know Nissan, right? It's the name of
the Japanese automobile company but take a look at the spelling. There's one
consonant S which is not paired with any vowels and unlike glide combinations
that we just reviewed it is not even followed by "ya"or "yu"or "yo." Then
how do we pronounce this word in Japanese? That's what we are going to
learn in this lesson. Okay let's begin.
Here you see two consonants SS in sequence right? We call the sequence
double consonants. It doesn't matter if the sequence is SS, TT, KK, PP or any
other consonants. When it comes to double consonants in Japanese there's only one
way to pronounce it. Let me show you. So, in this example of Nissan, there
is one extra S in it. There are two things that you need to remember
regarding this extra consonant. Point #1. You don't pronounce the extra
consonant. Point #2. Even though you don't pronounce it
this extra consonant still takes one beat when you pronounce the entire word. So,
that means you need to place one beat of silence for this extra consonant. So the
word Nissan has four beads like this. And if I pronounced Nissan slowly it's
going to be like this. Ni, s, sa, n. Nissan. it's not Ni, sa, n. It is Ni, s, sa, n.
so this is what you need to remember
about Japanese double consonants. No matter what the consonant is that one
extra consonant takes one silent beat in the pronunciation.
What about this then? Can you figure out how to pronounce this word? Here you have
the double consonant TT. So how many beats do we need to pronounce this word?
Right. You need three beats.
Kitte means postal stamps.
How about this one? Can you pronounce the word correctly? There are double
consonants or PP here.
Okay here's the answer. This is su, p, pa i. Suppai. And you need four beats to
pronounce this word.
Suppai means "sour" in Japanese. From here, for those who already know Hiragana I
want to show you how to spell a Japanese word with double consonants.
If you don't know Hiragana yet don't worry about it.
You can simply skip this section, okay? In case you are interested in learning
Hiragana I have a complete Hiragana lesson on my youtube channel. You can
find the information in the description box.
Okay let's use Suppai as an example. As you already know this word has four
beats right? Let's change each one into hiragana. So this is す
Pa is hiragana は with a tiny circle, and い looks like this.
Now we need to do something about this one extra consonant P, and then this is
what you do. You place a small-sized hiragana っ here. This is the spelling rules that you need to remember when it comes to double
consonants in Japanese. For the extra consonant that is not paired with a
vowel, you always have to place this small
っ. You do the same no matter what the consonant is. It doesn't matter if the
sequence is PP or TT or KK or something else, to spell any double
consonants you place the small っ for the extra consonant.
By the way you do the same even in Katakana spellings, okay? When you have
double consonants in a Katakana word you use the small ッ for the extra
consonant. And in this particular example of suppai
this is how the world looks in Hiragana.
So what about Nissan? How do you spell Nissan in Hiragana?
Okay this is how you spell it. に, small っ, さ, and ん.
にっさん. Again you placed a small っ for the
extra consonant which is the consonant S in this case.
Okay let's try another word. Can you spell this in Hiragana?
Kekkon.Kekkon.
Kekkon means marriage in Japanese and this word has double consonants KK in it.
Can you figure out how to spell the word in hiragana?
Okay here's the answer. け, small っ, こ,
ん. けっこん
You placed the small っ for the extra consonant K here.
By the way on the side note Kekkon means "marriage" as a noun but if you want to say
get married, you add the verb do "shimasu" to this noun and say
"kekkon shimasu"
"kekkon shimasu." This is how to say to get married in Japanese. So for instance, if
you want to say I'm going to get married next year, which is "rainen" in Japanese
you say "Watashi wa rainen kekkon shimasu." "Watashi wa rainen kekkon shimasu." I'm
going to get married next year. You can learn all about Japanese
verbs and particles like this in my online course, Japanese 3. Join us if
you were interested. I'll leave the information in the
description box below. Okay let's get back to the lesson about a double
consonants. Here is a question for you. How do you pronounce these two words? They
look very similar to each other right? But the difference is that one has small
っ in the middle and the other doesn't.
Can you differentiate the pronunciation of these two words?
Okay here's how you pronounce them. The first one is sakka.
Sakka. It takes three beats. The second one is saka. Saka.
Saka. It takes only two beats. These are real Japanese words and they
mean completely different things. Sakka means a professional writer or
author. On the other hand, Saka means a slope.
Do you hear the difference when I pronounce them a little faster?
Double consonants are very hard for non-Japanese people to catch by just
listening. But as you get used to Japanese sounds you will eventually be
able to hear the difference so don't worry too much about it okay? Even if you
cannot hear the difference between sakka and saka for instance, usually you
can tell which one was said from the context of the conversation. Now can you
figure out how to pronounce this phrase? How many beats are there?
This is a Japanese expression meaning "please go and come back" and we say this
when we see somebody off. Somebody who shares the same space as you such as
house or office, and the phrase entails the wish for the person's safe return as
well. In English there is no equivalent expression to this one because they
simply say "Bye" "See you later" in the situation but anyway, how do you
pronounce this phrase? You need to pay attention to the small っ in two
locations and then also glide combination here.
How many beats would you give to pronounce this phrase?
Okay the answer is 7 beats. i, t, te, ra, s, sha, i.
Itterasshai. Again, you have to give one beat of
silence for each small っ here and then one beat for the glide combination here.
Very good. Here's the final task for you in today's lesson. Please pronounce these
three words with double consonants. Ticket. Slowly. And good looking in Japanese.
Please pause the video here and say these three words to yourself before I give
you the answers okay?
Okay here are the answers.
kippu.
yukkuri.
kakkoii.
And this is how you spell these words in Hiragana.
きっぷ.
kippu.
ゆっくり. yukkuri.
かっこいい. kakkoii.
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Dewa, mata tsugi no ressun de aimashoo. (See you in the next lesson!)