In the Part 1, we discussed about the basic katakana table.


　ア(a)　イ(i)　ウ(u)　エ(e)　オ(o)

　カ(ka)　キ(ki)　ク(ku)　ケ(ke)　コ(ko)

　サ(sa)　シ(shi)　ス(su)　セ(se)　ソ(so)

　タ(ta)　チ(chi)　ツ(tsu)　テ(te)　ト(to)

　ナ(na)　ニ(ni)　ヌ(nu)　ネ(ne)　ノ(no)

　ハ(ha)　ヒ(hi)　フ(fu)　ヘ(he)　ホ(ho)

　マ(ma)　ミ(mi)　ム(mu)　メ(me)　モ(mo)

　ヤ(ya)　　　　　ユ(yu)　　　　　ヨ(yo)

　ラ(ra)　リ(ri)　ル(ru)　レ(re)　ロ(ro)

　ワ(wa)　　　　　　　　　　　　　ヲ(wo)

　ン(nn)

And in the Part 2, we discussed about the additional table with Dakuten (濁点, cloudy tone mark).

　ガ(ga)　ギ(gi)　グ(gu)　ゲ(ge)　ゴ(go)

　ザ(za)　ジ(ji)　ズ(zu)　ゼ(ze)　ゾ(zo)

　ダ(da)　ヂ(ji)　ヅ(zu)　デ(de)　ド(do)

　バ(ba)　ビ(bi)　ブ(bu)　ベ(be)　ボ(bo)

And in the Part 3, we discussed about the additional table with Han-Dakuten (半濁点, half-cloudy tone mark).

　パ(pa)　ピ(pi)　プ(pu)　ペ(pe)　ポ(po)

Following the table above, you can spell following words in Japanese.

English words Japanese pronunciation Katakana

America Amerika アメリカ

Babylonia Babironia バビロニア

pass pasu パス

Today, let's discuss about special Japanese charactor, 長音記号.

長音記号 is pronounced as Chouon-Kigou, which means Prolonged Mark.

It looks as a bar ー.

Note that in this series of topics, we are writing Japanese horizontally.
Originally, Japanese was written vertically.
If you write Japanese vertically, this bar stands up like |.

This mark / character / symbol will stretch the pronunciation of the former character.

So the sound varies depending on which character you write just before the mark.

Let's see some examples.

The word "hill" is pronounced by Japanese as hiru and written in Katakana as ヒル.
Note that we haven't use prolonged mark yet.
OK, let's use it.

The word "park" is pronounced by Japanese as paaku and written in Katakana as パーク.
In this case, the prolonged mark ー is pronunced as ア (a).

You might write this word as パアク.
Both two sequences of characters パーク and パアク are pronunced samely.
This is vague -- this phenomenon happens because Katakana is phonetics.
But for this purpose, to write パーク is much more popular than パアク.

But to write パアク is not illegal.
You can find the description パアク in the old Japanese books.

The word "heel" is pronounced by Japanese as hiiru and written in Katakana as ヒール.
In this case, the prolonged mark ー is pronunced as イ (i).

The country name "Peru" is pronounced by Japanese as peruu and written in Katakana as ペルー.
In this case, the prolonged mark ー is pronunced as ウ (u).

The word "rate" is pronounced by Japanese as reeto and written in Katakana as レート.
In this case, the prolonged mark ー is pronunced as エ (e).

The word "go" is pronounced by Japanese as goo and written in Katakana as ゴー.
In this case, the prolonged mark ー is pronunced as オ (o).

As you might find, the prolonged mark appeares at the end of word or in the middle of word.
You cannot use it at the start of the word.
If you do it, you cannot see how can you read the prolonged mark -- because it doesn't have the leading character.

Let's discuss about the special character nn (ン) the next time.
(Two weeks lator.)
Bye for now!