Page 44 - Basic Japanese

[cue 01-12]

Single Double Consonant

Consonant

pen pen ippen one time

ito thread itto a way, a
course

kako past kakko parentheses;
brackets

kasai fire kassai applause

isho will, issho together

testament

ichi one itchi accord,
agreement, unity

Just as the difference between long and short vowels is

very important to make your Japanese understandable, so is
the difference between long and short consonants.

One other point about aspiration. In English we do not
aspirate a consonant after s. But in Japanese, when the

syllable su is reduced to just a syllabic s (as in Ikaga desu ka.),
a following p, t, or k still has the slight aspiration it would

have in initial position. Notice the difference in

pronunciation between English ski, one syllable, no