Come in! i'm confused

[Duffy_497967]

hi, new learner here and trying to get to grips with Kana so i'm rapidly translating everything Japanese i have in my house.

However, one of the signs i have has me a little confused. it's a shop sign for a bar, which has the words "come on in!" on it.
Irasshaimase! or いらっしゃいませ！

When i'm translating that i look at the hiragana and the third character confuses me. Why isn't it "TSU"? making it in Romaji i-ra-TSU-sha-i-ma-se?

i'm sure i've made a mistake somewhere.

Thanks

Duffy

[mmmason8967]

The small tsu indicates that the first part of the next character is to be said. The next character is しゃ or sha, and the first part is "sh". So it's like this:-

いらっしゃいませ
i-ra-sh-sha-i-ma-se

In practice, when the next character is a "hard" one (like K or T), you make a short pause rather than actually saying the character twice. For example:-

ちょっと　まって
cho-t-to ma-t-te

The double-T sounds here are handled in a similar way to how you say the double-T in "flat tyre". At normal talking speed you say "fla<short pause>tyre".

マイケル

[Duffy_497967]

ahhhh おもしろい です

More to learn!

ありがとうございます。

[thegooseking]

Duffyさん、マイケルさん、

マイケルさん's explanation was perfectly good, but I just want to add my own take on it.

With 'hard' consonants, what I do is I move my mouth into the shape of the consonant, but then pause before pronouncing it. You can imagine it like firing a bow and arrow: moving your mouth into the position is like nocking the arrow, pausing is like drawing back the string, and finally pronouncing it is like releasing. This makes the consonant, like an arrow, come out a bit more forcefully.

Of course, as マイケルさん says, things like 's' are different.

Occasionally a small 'tsu' will become a regular 'tsu'. You can see this, for example, in the compound kanji 仏陀 ('Buddha'). This is pronounced ぶっだ (BU-DDA), with a small 'tsu', but 仏 on its own is pronounced ぶつ (BU-TSU), where the 'tsu' is all grown up. This is really just a point of trivia at the moment, though. You don't have to worry about it until you're well into working with kanji.

[community.japanese]

Hello Duffy san,
That sounds good you understood crealy.

マイケルさん、thegooseking　さん、
Thank you for the explanation.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[Duffy_497967]

thank you all, much clearer.

nice to be part of a community

[community.japanese]

Duffy san,
Yes, all of you can help each other.
いっしょにがんばりましょう。
Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com