Kana Combinations
So we’ve covered the 46 modern hiragana and katakana, and we added 25 sounds, plus the small っ. That gives us 72 possible mora. That sounds like a lot, but did you know that English has over 1,000?!
That will hopefully make you feel a little better about the fact that there are still 52 sounds for us to cover.
Fortunately, they’re all quite simple. All we need to do to make them is COMBINE some of the characters we already learned by attaching a SECOND SMALLER kana to the first, kind of like the small っ.
Fortunately, we can’t just make ANY character small. For hiragana, it’s pretty much ONLY:
よ, ゆ, and や
And we can only combine THOSE with the kana that have a consonant AND end in an い sound:
き、ぎ、し、じ、ち、に、ひ、び、ぴ、み、and り
Please keep in mind that these new combinations are themselves ONE SINGLE MORA. For example: きょ isn't read as "KI YO", but combined as KYO, into one mora.
Let’s blast em all out:
きょ、きゅ、きゃ
Type: “Kyo, kyu, kya”
ぎょ、ぎゅ、ぎゃ
Type: “Gyo, gyu, gya”
しょ、しゅ、しゃ
Type: “Sho, shu, sha”
じょ、じゅ、じゃ
Type: “Jo or jyo, ju or jyu, ja or jya”
ちょ、ちゅ、ちゃ
Type: “cho or tyo, chu or tyu, cha or tya”
にょ、にゅ、にゃ
Type: “Nyo, nyu, nya”
ひょ、ひゅ、ひゃ
Type: “Hyo, hyu, hya”
びょ、びゅ、びゃ
Type: “Byo, byu, bya”
ぴょ、ぴゅ、ぴゃ
Type: “Pyo, pyu, pya”
みょ、みゅ、みゃ
Type: “Myo, myu, mya”
りょ、りゅ、りゃ
Type: “Ryo, ryu, rya”
That is 33 sounds, giving us a total of 105.
