su - nest
suu - number
beru - bell
beeru - veil
(These last two both sound like borrowings from English.)
Since these feel kind of like they're only one word to remember (they're so short and easy and almost identical), I decided to up it a bit today with some more vowel sound distinctions:
hoshi - star (This one I know because it's the name Kel gives her horse in Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series, in which one of the cultures is very definitely based off Japanese.)
hooshi - service
The purpose of these vowel-full words is to demonstrate that the vowel sequences don't turn into diphthongs; that is, they are each pronounced at their own full vowel and don't meld into one another.
ue - top, up, above
akai - red
aoi - blue (This one sounds exactly like the sound you would make if you were to become black and blue. Sort of like 'owie'. Or perhaps [aʊi].
koe - voice (This one is very like the Mandarin word for mouth, which I think is ko or something like that. I wonder if the kanji is the same as the Chinese character.)
And the hiragana for the day:
た - ta
ち - chi
It kind of seems like if you put them together, you'd get that crazy Chinese relaxation martial art thing, but there's no diphthong [aI] in Japanese, as far as I know. That means no tai chi! Just たち, which is a completely different kettle of fish! And, I think, the plural suffix? Watashitachi means 'we', and tomodachitachi is 'friends', so yes. Plural suffix it is!
Sometimes I am weird even to myself.
Hm... waたしたち and tomoぢちたち I think. Hooray putting things together! Probably all wrong, but it's a start.
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