Sokuon

Okay kiddo, so you know how sometimes when we speak certain words in Japanese, there's a small little "tsu" character in between two other letters? That little "tsu" is called a sokuon!

What it does is make the sound before it extra sharp and short. It's like a little pause in the sound, almost like a tiny hiccup. So if we have the word "hattori" (はっとり), without the sokuon, it would be pronounced "ha-to-ri" with a longer sound between the "t" and "r".

But if we add in the sokuon as "happori" (はっぽり), the "t" sound becomes super short and sharp, like a quick tap on a drum. So with the sokuon, it sounds like "hap-po-ri".

It might seem like a small detail, but the sokuon can really change the way a word sounds and help us understand what someone is saying more clearly.