Question about 'tsu' (Kana)

[Azier the Swordsman]

How do I know when 'tsu' represents a double consonent or it reads 'tsu'?

In manga they look exactly the same! (Especially in Furigana)

[ShiroiHikari]

I've been wondering the same thing myself o_O

[Staci]

This may sound like a silly question:

Aren't they supposed to put the little ^ character above the U's which should be carried longer? Kind of like how Yuu Watase does in her novels (it's just one U with the ^ over it).

Or I could be completely mistaken. (Wouldn't be the first time, either!)

[Azier the Swordsman]

Hmm.. I don't read novels, so I'm not sure. I'm mainly talking about manga. Basically, the character 'tsu', when used, can also mean a double consonent, such as tt, pp, ss, ect. Typically, this kind of 'tsu' is only half it's size making a way to distinguish it from it's real sound, however, in manga they all look the same size, making it hard to distinguish which is which. (For my untrained American eyes at least)

[Mr. Rogers]

ive never read any japanese manga (yet) but the tsu is a little smaller when it means the next sound is carried on a little longer. sometimes it is hard to tell though if it is smaller or not. maybe it takes a while to get used to it and be able to figure it out.

[shooraijin]

Yeah, it just takes practise to recognize.

As for what Staci was saying, you can do long vowels in several ways.

The simplest just writes the hiragana out directly, so saying 'Good morning' is rendered 'ohayou'

The second simplest, or modified Hepburn (my preference when I don't have Hepburn macron characters), writes long vowels out as two vowels, e.g., 'ohayoo'

Hepburn and 'standard' romaji work like how Staci says, except Hepburn uses a 'macron' or horizontal bar instead of the ^. Usually, it's only applied to long o or long u.

[Takachi]

ok... since I have a Japanese word processor and just expressing in words sometimes is confusing, I will show you what they mean (btw... you need to have Japanese character set loaded on your computer to see the characters)

tsu makes a dubble consonent by writing it smaller before the double consonant:
-in the word "motte" (meaning have) もって
-in the word "kappu" (meaning cup) カップ

To make a vowel long in kana (the phonetic system of writing) you simply add a "macron", a dash after the vowel or write it out using u with u and o or doubling "aa", "ii", and "ee":
-in "douzo" (by all means, please) どうぞ
-in "ee" (yes) ええ
or
-in "sa-bei" (survey) サーベイ


I hope that helped, I'm not the best teacher but I try.

[shooraijin]

Actually, I didn't think that horizontal slash had a name for it (none of my writing books call it anything in particular), and Wikipedia doesn't mention it in that context either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macron

[Takachi]

It is true that "macron" is the name for the Romaji dash, but I have also seen it applied for the dash in katakana, being as it is the katakana equivalent.

BTW- a - is only used in writing katakana to my knowledge, the vowel is doubled in hiragana

[Bobtheduck]

がっこう

がつこ

One means School, one of them might mean "Moon child" if you give it the right kanji... Hehehehe

月子

actually, that would have to be "tsuki no ko" つきのこ　Or 月の子　

[Takachi]

actually if it was a name you could just leave it Gatsuko(girl's name), but I'm not sure it is (only certain characters are set aside for creating names) but this might be a name used in anime. alot of anime names are made up, usualy they are names that reflect that character but sometimes they use real names in anime (Kuwabara is an actual family name) Anyway... sorry for going off again, I get caried away lol...