[Japanese] Long vowels question

[Dash]

[Japanese] Long vowels question

Woo... a question that's kinda bugged me off and on throughout my year of Japanese.

When we learned how to extend vowels, we learned the hiragana way:
ああ
えい
いい
おう
うう

And then in katakana, you just add a ー after the vowel
アー
エー
イー
オー
ウー

However, I've seen people use the small つ/ツ after a vowel, seeming indicating an extended vowel.

So my question simply is... when would you use っ and ッ and when would you use the "normal" system?

 

[onkeikun]

っ and ッ aren't really for extending a vowel, but cutting it short... I'm not sure I understand what you mean, mind telling me where you've seen that?

Do you mean something like in a manga where a character would say: 勝っっっっっっっっつ！！！！！　?

 

[Dash]

Oh... I mean when they're at the end of a word. Like in the other thread, you use わっ for "Wah!"

The only time I would know to use the little tsu is for a double letter... やった (yatta)

 

[onkeikun]

Oh, I see. Try this. Say わっ out loud and hold it. For the sake of other people reading this, I'll explain that to pronounce "wah" you have to say "what" without saying the 't' ending of that word. Say it short and quick, and hold the position your mouth makes. Notice that the back of your throat feels a bit clenched?

Now say わー out loud and hold it. To say this word, you "waaah" normally, elongating the 'ah' part. Notice that your throat is much more relaxed than the previous example. If you press your fingers to the front of your throat when doing both, you can feel your esophagus jump at わっ but not during わー

And that's all the difference there is. I'm sorry, it's my fault for not giving a more general explanation in that other thread. When I put that small っ at the end, I was unconsciously inserting a little bit of culture in it. The わっ is not an elongator like わー, but said as short as possible. It indicates the speaker's surprise (usually, or a great amount of emotion), and you'll typically see it in blogs/manga. I really, really recommend you yourself don't use it the way I did outside of your own blogs, when writing to friends, or in a casual setting. It's colloquial, so people will not think highly of your grammar skills anyplace else.

 

[Rein]

Yeah, chisai tsus are used for cutting off and doubling the sound of the next character. At least, that's all I've ever used them for. <_<;

 

[Dash]

Ah! That makes sense now. Thanks