#sokuon

[isshonihongo]

Sound Changes - Part 1 (そくおん)

We talked about そくおん back in the Hiragana section. This post is a continuation of the topic, but looking at how it relates to Kanji and listening comprehension.

そくおん is what we call the smaller version of the つ character. It’s used to double certain consonant sounds. For example, みか would be pronounced as “Mika”, but みっか would become “mikka”. Last time we focused on which characters can come after small つ. In this post we’ll see that sometimes the そくおん is a sign that the word has undergone a sound change.

Let’s get into it!

Case 1: っ Is Really く

For our first example, let’s take the word for “school”. It’s made up of 2 Kanji - 学 (read as がく) and 校 (read as こう). However, we don’t read the resulting word as がくこう because that is hard (more like unnatural) to pronounce for Japanese speakers. Instead, that く is replaced by small つ and the word is pronounced as がっこう. That small つ is a sign that “がっ” would be pronounced differently (as がく) if it were attached to a different Kanji!

Here are 4 more examples:

Another example is the word 音楽家, which means “a musician”. The individual Kanji with their readings are:

音（おん） 楽（がく) 家（か）

Interestingly Japanese treats this word as not 3, but 2 separate parts (called compounds) - おんがく and か. So we have a く at the end of 1 compound, and a k sound at the start of the next one. Oh no! Therefore we need a small つ. The word is pronounced as おんがっか.

Case 2: っ Is Really ち

Our second case is when small つ would be ち in other situations. For this case, the only common Kanji with on’yomi ending in ち is 日 (read as にち)*. So let’s look at when 日 will turn into “にっ”.

Before かきくけこ:

にっかん (日韓) Japan and Korea

Before さしすせそ:

にっさん (日産) The Nissan car company にっし (日誌) a journal or a daily log にっすう (日数) the number of days for/of something

Before たちつてと:

にっちゅう (日中) during the daytime; Japan and China にってい (日程) a schedule or agenda

Before はひふへほ.

Be careful! The second Kanji of these words undergo another sound change where they become ぱぴぷぺぽ.

Case 3: っ Is Really つ

Our final case involves つ becoming the smaller version of itself! Remember that 日 is the only common Kanji with an on’yomi ending in ち、and there are only a few Kanji with on’yomi ending with く. However, there are a lot of Kanji with on’yomi ending in つ*！The times when つ changes to っ are the same as when ち changes to っ.

Before かきくけこ:

ぶっか (物価) cost-of-living しっけ (湿気) moisture, humidity

Before さしすせそ:

ほっさ (発作) an attack, a fit, a spasm けっせき (欠席) absence, non-attendance

Before たちつてと:

けってん (欠点) fault, flaw, defect あっとう (圧倒) to overwhelm, to intimidate

Before はひふへほ.

The second Kanji of these words also undergo another sound change where they become ぱぴぷぺぽ.

失敗 (失敗) failure, mistake さっぽろ (札幌) the capital city of Hokkaido

Listening Comprehension

Now I’ll give you an example of how this knowledge might help you.

Very early on in my time here, I was on a bus going somewhere (probably to get some ramen lol). The driver had been saying something every time we were about to move, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Eventually I made out the word he was using.

It was はっしゃ.

I knew what the word meant from context, but I wanted to look it up in my dictionary. I thought to myself: Is that “はっ” that I hear originally はく、はち、or はつ？

It turns out that it was はつ. The Kanji are 発車 and it means “departure or leaving (for vehicles)”.

This is an example of how knowing a number of Kanji, along with the tendencies of small つ, can help you figure out the meaning of new words that you hear in conversation. I know that you might be thinking of a dozen other things while you are talking / listening, but this is a good skill to have as your Japanese improves!

Conclusion

There is 1 thing to keep in mind:

This is not true every time there is a small つ between Kanji! Many adverbs and onomatopoeia have そくおん but don’t have an underlying sound change. It just takes exposure to lots of Kanji and their on’yomi. Eventually you will start making guesses in real time, and unraveling the sound “behind” the small つ. Good luck!

Rice & Peace

– AL (アル)

👋🏾

*There are a number of Kanji that have on’yomi ending in both ち and つ. Here are some examples:

一 can be いち or いつ 質 can be しち or しつ 吉 can be きち or きつ

[ubastyyat]

Umeon doodles

[katakanakitten]

A question that's long been bothering me and I thought maybe you could help: When reading uncommon or stylized fonts I often get confused with identifying つ/っ or ツ/ッ. Like, imagine レッキングクルー from yesterday in a font that doesn't so clearly minimize the ッ. Is there a rule of thumb for distinguishing sokuon or do you just have to try and see which one makes sense? Thanks for your time.

As far as I can say, that’s really the fault of the font. Sometimes they can be hard to distinguish. However, with practice, you will be able to infer which is which mostly based on context.

For example, you can easily surmise that ロック is ROKKU (rock/lock), especially if you’re expecting the word to be a loanword or non-Japanese name, because ROTSUKU doesn’t mean anything. Or likewise, びっくり (surprise) is BIKKURI because BITSUKURI is not a word and you would have no memory of it coming up before.

Parsing text this way might seem a little daunting, but it’s pretty natural. Certain words come up a lot more frequently than most others, and with enough reading practice it becomes easy to distinguish how words are supposed to be formed just from the context of what’s being written.

[divorce]

おねがい　なにかいって

i did it, i learned something!