Can someone explain this to me? (Duolingo help)

8 comments

1. The upper left one sounds like kiyu きゅI would say that the two kanas are pronounced equally while the bottom left is not. It’s kyu where we cut off the i mora in the kana
   き.

2. If the ゆ is smaller than the き, then it becomes the compound hiragana きゅ/kyu. If they’re the same size it’s きゆ/kiyu.

3. Look at the size of the ゆ kana, that is the difference. I used to struggle with this as well. About pronunciations, they are often incorrect for Japanese course on duolingo, at least, from my experience, that’s one of the reasons I stoped using it for Japanese.

4. Look at these two side by side and spot the difference: ゆゅ
   Also, you should probably look kana up somewhere or watch a video explaining them, because Duolingo doesn’t explain shit.

5. upper left is ki-yu, 2 hiragana

6. Not sure on pronunciation. But the top left would be pronounced kiyu while the bottom left would be Kyu since the yu character is small

7. Look carefully at the bottom and top rows’ second character. The lower is smaller, and the top one is regular sized.

   The small character changes how the group is pronounced.

   So the top two cards have

   きよ –> ki yo. きゆ –> ki yu

   And the lower two have

   きょ –> kyo. きゅ –> kyu

   I recommend learning all the characters (at the least all the hiragana characters before proceeding with the lessons).

8. its kinda like japanese’ capital and lower case letters but instead of signifying names/tone of voice it kinda just merges sounds.

   きゆ would be ki-yu

   きゅ would be kyu

   きよ would be ki-yo

   きょ would be kyo

   main thing to notice is the size of the character. most hiragana are more or less at the same height so its relatively easy to notice when you see them.