The Long vowels
I don’t know the rules in long vowels. All
I know is that in Hiragana, long vowels mean longer sounds or double the length
of pronouncing the vowel letters. Unlike in small ‘tsu’ which is the double of
consonants, long vowels focuses on doubling the five vowel letters, あ,い,う,え,お.
Others define the long vowels by adding a line above the vowel of a word in Hiragana, except for い as it is written twice when they write the words in Romaji or its English term. I don’t usually put a line above the vowel when I use Romaji because, for me, it's quite confusing. That’s why I spelled the words on how it is written and type on the keyboard so it will not confuse me when I write the correct Kanji.
Example:
|
Japanese words |
How others
write the Romaji |
How I write the Romaji |
English |
|
おかあさん |
Okāsan |
Okaasan |
Mother |
|
おとうさん |
Otōsan |
Otousan |
Father |
|
おねえさん |
Onēsan |
Oneesan |
Elder Sister |
|
おとうと |
Otōto |
Otouto |
Younger Brother |
While the long vowel for Katakana represents only a hyphen or dash line (―). In Katakana, you don’t need to worry whether the vowels will be double or not. I also don’t use the line above the vowel when I put the Romaji of each word in order not to spell it wrongly.
|
Japanese words |
How others
write the Romaji |
How I write the Romaji |
English |
|
ブレースレット |
burēsuretto |
bureーsuretto |
Bracelet |
|
サッカー |
sakkā |
sakkaー |
Soccer |
|
クローゼット |
kurōzetto |
kuroーzetto |
Closet |
|
パーティー |
pātii |
paーtiー |
Party |
For all the examples I will be using in all
my posts, I will not use the line above the vowel when writing the Romaji, so
it is easy to spell the words.
More examples will be posted soon as we
already finish the basic Hiragana and Katakana. Please look forward to it.
See you soon.
If you want to learn about Hiragana and Katakana again, just click the link below.
<< The Hiragana Characters The Katakana Characters >>
You can also check other lessons:
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