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**masterboyz** · 04-21-2010, 07:25 AM

So confused. Are they pronounced differently?

Yes... it is confusing.

A double consonant denotes a "rest" in pronunciation. "mate" is two beats: ma-te. "matte" is three beats: ma-rest-te. Another good example of this from kendo vocabulary is "ippon" -- it's four beats: i-rest-po-n. The English language doesn't have the typography to show that kind of thing, so romanization compromises by showing it with a double consonant, the exception being "n," which is actually two n sounds.

Okay, this drifts off subject but all this romaji, kanji, hiragana confusion has me asking - what do Japanese use for text message abbreviations? Is there yet another alphabet for LOL, BFF, OMG, WTF, etc?

Depends. "w" is used for "lol" and is short for "warau," which means smile/laugh. Some people just type （笑）, which is just the kanji for warau in parentheses. Other times, you'll find that people use kanji with roughly the same pronunciation as what they want to say. For example, the kanji 塚, which means "hill," is pronounced "tsuka," which sounds like tsu-ka, which is a shortened way to say "te ka," which itself is a shortened way of saying "to iu ka," which means "speaking of which" or "by the way."

04-21-2010, 07:25 AM	#25
masterboyz Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 586 Senior Member	So confused. Are they pronounced differently? Yes... it is confusing. A double consonant denotes a "rest" in pronunciation. "mate" is two beats: ma-te. "matte" is three beats: ma-rest-te. Another good example of this from kendo vocabulary is "ippon" -- it's four beats: i-rest-po-n. The English language doesn't have the typography to show that kind of thing, so romanization compromises by showing it with a double consonant, the exception being "n," which is actually two n sounds. Okay, this drifts off subject but all this romaji, kanji, hiragana confusion has me asking - what do Japanese use for text message abbreviations? Is there yet another alphabet for LOL, BFF, OMG, WTF, etc? Depends. "w" is used for "lol" and is short for "warau," which means smile/laugh. Some people just type （笑）, which is just the kanji for warau in parentheses. Other times, you'll find that people use kanji with roughly the same pronunciation as what they want to say. For example, the kanji 塚, which means "hill," is pronounced "tsuka," which sounds like tsu-ka, which is a shortened way to say "te ka," which itself is a shortened way of saying "to iu ka," which means "speaking of which" or "by the way."
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