Song: Gessekai
by: Buck-Tick



Due to length of my previous post, i totally forgot to put this in.


---------------------------------------SMALL 'TSU'-----------------------------------------

*note: both means "wait", just that they are in different forms. The one on your left is in "te-form", while the one on your right is in the dictionary form.

Notice the difference size of the 'tsu' circled in red? The one on our left is of smaller size, so we shall call it the small 'tsu'.
It doesn't really have a pronunciation of it own, as you can see from the romanji (english spelling of japanese words). It takes the first letter of word it comes before.
So how shall we go about pronouncing it then? Don't get confused by the romanji it takes after, it just basically means you give it a short pause before pronouncing the word after the small 'tsu'.

Like this: ma *short pause* te.

Yoshi. So how about this: Totte?
Ans: to *short pause* te

Katte?
Ans: ka *short pause* te.
^^ v

Gosh. I feel like some retard writing this entry =.=

Song: Kono Tegami...
by: ALvino

Intrigued on how to pronounce japanese words when you come across one?
*note: i did not give pronunciations to all hiraganas here, due to my time limit.


----------------------------------HIRAGANA PART------------------------------------

*note: those in red are rarely used

The 'a' is being pronounced like the A in father. So as we go down the column, we'll pronounced the first letter followed by the A in father.
For eg, 'ka' will sound like the 'ka' in card, 'sa' will sound like the 'sa' in SARS...and so on and forth.


The 'i' will sound like the the 'e' letter in english.
The 'ki' will sound like the 'ki' in kid, 'shi' in shit, 'chi' like the cheat so on and forth.
*the 'gi' and 'ji' might be slightly confusing.
'gi' will sound like the word geek and 'ji' will sound something like gym.

The 'u' will sound like coop, the 'ku' sounding like cool, 'su' like susan.
'tsu' is the hardest to describe because i think there's no english pronounced that sounds close to it. In chinese, the closest i can think is 'zi' the first sound. Like: 资.
Try putting your teeth together, push your tongue against the teeth and make a sound. 'tsu' will sound something like that. Haha. Sorry for the lack of information.
* to me, 'zu' and 'dsu' sounds the same. It sounds very much like zoo.


On the other hand, 'e' sounds like the 'e' from eh.
'ke' like cat, 'se' like send, 'te' in tend and so on.

While 'o' will sound the same as the o in the english letter.
'ko' will sound like code, 'so' like sold, 'to' like told, so on and forth.
*'wo' will sound like world.

On the 'o' column, 11th row, there's a letter that looks strangely like 'h'. It's pronounced like placing your tongue between your teeth and making a sound. Sounds like the 'm' in erm, for a lack of better example.





There are some exceptions to pronunciation and these exceptions happens when the hiragana becomes a particle.

Originally pronounced as 'ha' (like the hahaha). But when it becomes a particle, it becomes 'wa' (war).


The 'wa' is a particle which addresses the noun in front of it as the main topic. So 'watashi' (I) is the main topic. 'Desu' is just something to end the statement.

This 'he' (hey) will become 'e' (elephant) when it becomes a particle.

'e' is something like 'to'; I go to Japan.

If it's just a word, it's pronounced as 'wo' (world). When in particle mood. It sounds like 'o' just like the o in english letter.

This 'o' is a particle that addresses the noun in front of it as an object.

Well of course there are many more particles but i wont be touching on that =)
If you have noticed, the japanese language have a different way of phrasing their words. While English uses a noun-verb-object arrangement, japanese language uses a noun-object-verb arrangement.
Other languages like Korean also uses this same word arrangement.

Phew! Finally done on the hiragana part. For the next session, i think i might be touching on the katakana part. Don't worry, katakana is nothing new, they all have the same pronounciations as the hiragana, it's just that they have a different look/stroke as compared to the hiragana.