This isn't the most advanced topic I'll ever cover, but it's something that I have never seen explained on any of the major Japanese learning websites that I have been to since I started learning Japanese.Basically, it's about the つ character. Actually, let me rephrase that. It's about the little っ character you see every once in a while when reading Japanese.
For example, ちょっとまってください is a popular expression used to ask someone to please wait or slow down or a variety of other liberal translations. You'll notice that both ちょっと and まって have a small っ character separating two characters. That the is the っ I wish to discuss today.
Hit the jump for the full discussion.
What is a Glottal Stop?
Simply put, the small っ represents a glottal stop. A glottal stop is just a fancy expression to describe something everyone already knows how to do - press their vocal cords together to restrict air flow and then release.
Still no idea what I'm talking about? Well, say the word, "uh-oh", or the word, "cat", and you'll have an idea of what I mean. That small pause between "uh" and "oh" or the double "t" sound as you say "kat" followed by the "tt" sound to pronounce the word, "cat" are just two examples of numerous words in English, and just about every other language in the world, that use a glottal stop.
In Japanese, they outright tell you when you must do this to say the word correctly and the small っ character is how they do so.
How Do I Use A Glottal Stop in Japanese?
So, back to our original example, ちょっとまってください, you would pronounce ちょっと by having a small pause after ちょ and a doubling of the consonant "t" in と, one to end the ちょ and another to start the と. In romanji, you could write this as, "chotto", or, in broken into syllables, as "chot-to". The same would be done for まって and every other instance of the glottal stop in Japanese.
What About Katakana?
Finally, before there's any confusion, you can do the same thing in katakana using the ツ character.
Conclusion
As I said at the start, this is pretty much a beginner level lesson, but it's something that perplexed me for the longest time, seeing as I didn't take lessons and was doing it all on my own. I couldn't find out the reason why some words had the small っor what it even meant until I started listening to audio files provided on some sites and noticed the glottal stop.
Hopefully, someone out there will find this post useful in their Japanese learning endeavours.
1 comment:
This is Very Very helpful. I am trying to learn Japanese on my own and this cleared my confusion.
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