Hi all! I’ve embarked on learning Japanese and am having difficulty with the “U” vowel in Hiragana. I understand the tsu in both katakana and hiragana.
There are some words with a “U” and others that extend a vowel (Otoosan). When do you add the letter “U” in the word versus extending the vowel? Or do you never add the letter “U”?
Thanks in advance. :]
5 comments
It’s おと**う**さん (oto**u**san), not おと**お**さん (oto**o**san).
When a う follows an お sound, the お sound is lengthened to two mora.
The long お sound is usually spelled by adding う, but in a few words it is spelled by adding お instead. There is no logical pattern, so you will just need to learn these one by one. Fortunately there are only a handful of these exceptions that you will need to know as a beginner.
When writing in romaji, the correct spelling depends on which [romanization system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese) you are using.
As I understand it, words with the おお spelling in modern Japanese were previously pronounced “owo” (and even earlier, “ofo” and “opo”), before the language’s sounds shifted to their current form.
> There are some words with a “U” and others that extend a vowel (Otoosan)
It’s spelt おとうさん (o-to-u-sa-n), with a u. おとおさん is not correct, despite some textbooks using a romanisation system that spell it o-to-o-sa-n. One reason to ditch romaji as soon as possible.
> When do you add the letter “U” in the word versus extending the vowel?
If the word is not on [this list](https://i.imgur.com/yyZhwIK.jpg) ([source](https://www.kyoiku-shuppan.co.jp/textbook/chuu/kokugo/guidanceq013-00.html)), just assume it uses う and you will be right 99% of the time.
Please search for “easypronunciation.com”. You can see Japanese in IPA.
there’s no rule, some words have it and some don’t. おお is much rarer than おう but it’s still a matter of memorization. definitely get away from romaji as quickly as possible so that O with a macron over it will cease being unclear.