Original Posting: October 27th, 2008
Hiragana has one more part to further complicate it, but still not adding any more new characters. What we’ll be talking about today is described in several different ways. I was taught Contracted sounds, but it can be called double consonant hiragana, or just double hiragana. Take the 1st entry in the chart below- きゃ (kya. ) You’ll notice that the や (ya) is smaller than the き (ki) this is what tells the reader that it’s a contracted sound.

きゃ Kya
きや Kiya
^ at first glance, they appear to be the same, but there are different meanings & pronunciations.

As long as you know the rest of the hiragana, there’s no need to memorize this chart straight.