Jan 30 word of the day question

[joemomma013344]

Monday's word of the day was コック. I don't get the ッ in the middle. This makes it seem to say kotsuku or kotuku instead of koku. Why is it not コク or コーク?

Yes I am an absolute beginner!
ありがとうございます！

[mwbeale6642]

Hi Joe (ジョー),

The thing is that the middle katakana is represents a pause. In katakana you use ッ where you would use っ in hiragana. So コック would be:

---> こっく if written in hiragana
---> kokku (if written in romaji)

In one of the beginner series lessons, I thought there was a good explanation of how you can handle those little pauses: each hiragana syllable occupies about the same amount of time: in order to "say" the "っ", you keep the same rhythm but no sounds comes out during the "っ" syllable. The audio on the word of the day that Jpod101 provided for "コック" is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. [strictly they're not syllables, but I think that's a linguistic nicety].

Your コーク actually lengthens the initial syllable, so it sounds like "こうく" (or maybe こおく).

I'm happy if someone has a better explanation...

がんばってください。

マーティン。

[joemomma013344]

マーティンさん! ありがとうございます！