Japanese words and their meanings are easily altered by extending vowel sounds. When using Roman letters, these elongated vowel sounds are written as double vowels. For example, iie (“no”) is differentiated from ie (“house”) by writing the “i” twice.

When you come across these elongated vowels, it is not necessary to repeat the vowel sound twice. Instead, elongate the sound for an extra second or two. This will alleviate confusion as to whether you are referring to a math exercise (tasu) or the majority political party (tasuu).

In some situations, what may sound elongated is actually two different vowels. For example, the word keito (“knitting wool”) is made up of two different words ke (“wool”) and ito (“thread”). When spoken, the vowels of this compound word seem to run together. This differentiation is really only evident when reading written Japanese.