Have you ever tried to write the hiragana or katakana small and couldn't? For some, even writing the correct syllable, no option with small hiragana appears. In this article, I will help you learn once and for all how to write these small hiragana on any computer or mobile phone.
We rarely use these small kana, the most used of them is the tsu (つ /っッ) which can easily appear when typing two consonants together like "tt" and "ss". The small tsu is called Sokuon (促音) which indicates a doubled consonant sound or a pause or cut in the pronunciation.
This small tsu can be present in both hiragana and katakana words like Football which in Japanese can be called futtebooru [フットボール] or sakkaa [サッカー].
Other small katakana and hiragana that we use a lot are (ゃゅょ) which are often used to combine a consonant with the sounds ya yu yo. By using these small kana, you can form sounds like ちゃ (cha), ピュ (pyu), びょ (byo), きゅ (kyu) and others. To type them, just write the letters to form the syllable.
How to Use and Type the Small ぁぃぇぉ
Other small kana that are not usually used are the sounds ぁぃぇぉ. They used to be used in syllables like wi (うぃ), we (ウェ), vi (ヴィ), ve (ヴェ), je (じぇ), fa (ファ) and others. Currently, most of these syllables can be written in a simpler way like vi (ヴィ) can write bi (び). If you want to write these small hiragana or katakana, you can type things like va, vi, ve, and vo.
There is a simple way to write any hiragana or small katakana by itself. To do this, just type the X before the kana you want to write small. Another alternative is to type the 1, but it doesn't work on all devices.
It is worth remembering that the syllables wi and we have their own kana that have become obsolete. If you write them currently, it will be ウィ and ウェ, but if you navigate with the arrow to the other options and writing suggestions, you will find the hiragana ゐ and ゑ.
Unfortunately, only kana アイウエオあいうえどうつやゆよ can get small. Hope you enjoyed these little tips. We appreciate the comments and shares. We also recommend reading:
- Dakuten and handakuten - Quotation marks in Japanese
- Rōmaji - The Romanization of the Japanese Language
- KANJI or HIRAGANA - How to know which one to use?
- Can ん(N) begin a Japanese sentence?
