How do I type smaller お, ゆ and つ used in some words?

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1

Hello,
I’ve downloaded the hiragana keyboard for my laptop so am typing answers using the characters. For some reason I’m stuck on ふお〜く and いいえ、けこうです and めにゆーをくでさい I keep getting “yellow” for these answers and now memrise won’t let me learn anything new. I can’t figure out how to type them differently or what Im doing wrong. I think part of the problem is that there’s no way for me to type the smaller お or つ. Any advice would be appreciated. I’m getting とても frustrated!

Thanks

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The “small ゆ” is used in digraphs (basically, two characters standing for one single sound) called Yōon. In those digraphs, one of 「や」 , 「よ」 or 「ゆ」 is combined with a kana that ends in an “i” sound.

For example, 「き」 combined with 「や」, “ki” and “ya”, form the Yōon 「きゃ」, as you noticed written with a smaller version of 「や」. It’s pronounced “kya”, and with most IMEs (the “hiragana keyboard” you mentioned) you can type it like that, too. So if you type “kyuu”, you should get 「きゅう」 (which means “nine”, by the way).

Most Yōon follow that “-ya”, “-yo”, “-yu” scheme. For example, 「みゅ」 is pronounced and typed “myu”, 「ぎょ」 is pronounced and typed “gyo” and so forth. But there are exceptions, when the first part is 「し」 or 「ち」. 「しゃ」 isn’t “shya” or something like that, but simply “sha”. 「ちょ」 isn’t “chyo”, but simply “cho”. The same goes for the voiced versions with 「じ」, 「じゃ」 is “ja”. As far as I know, there are no Yōon with 「ぢ」.

The “small つ” is called Sokuon. It’s mostly used to denote a Gemination or a “prolonged consonant”, as for example in “saddle”. So, 「やった」 is pronounced “yatta”. And again, your IME should allow you to “type as you speak”. If you type “chotto”, you should get 「ちょっと」. As you see, Yōon and Sokuon can be combined in the same word.

A “small お” is new to me.

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Depends on your IME. For mine, “kyuu” makes きゅう and works the same for other dipthongs. For the glottal stop, type the appropriate double character such as “nippon” for にっぽん. You can also use “x” prior to a character to force it to be small. So “texi” makes てぃ. That means “xo” makes ぉ.

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Thank You!!! It’s working. I’m so glad I asked.

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My IME makes me type x or l

so if i typed ティッシュ it would look like texisshu (and then space to convert it to katakana)

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