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Below is a unicode chart for Hiragana characters. I see there are two a, i, u,
e, o and so on, small and big ones. Please help me explain this as I am just
starting to learn Hiragana today.

[![Hiragana Unicode
Chart](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZlYgf.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZlYgf.png)

I got this unicode chart from this
[page](http://www.rikai.com/library/kanjitables/kanji_codes.unicode.shtml).
CC BY-SA 4.0
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question
hiragana unicode
Hiragana Unicode Chart has two characters for each
Certain sounds in Japanese are spelled with two characters, much like in
English spellings like the "sh" in "fish" to spell the sound //ʃ//. These
combinations are called **digraphs**. There was a separate post about a
related issue over
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/62287/ocha-in-
hiragana/62288#62288) that provides more detail.
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answer
The large/normal size and small size characters for hiragana and katakana have
different Unicode representations.

Sometimes small kana are combined with normal kana to represent certain
sounds. The most typical types are listed below:

**拗音{ようおん}** : Contracted sounds like sha, kya, gyo, etc are represented with
one normal sized and one small kana character. For example, しゃ, きゃ, ぎょ, etc.

**促音{そくおん}** : Used to mark a geminate consonant - this is represented with a
small tsu. For example, きって.

**外来語{がいらいご}** : Words borrowed from foreign languages. It is often not
possible to represent sounds from foreign languages with standard kana use, so
the vowel sounds are often combined with various consonants in an attempt to
authentically recreate the original sound. Again, very often you see a normal
sized character and a small character together. There are many, but for
example, fa = ファ, ti = ティ, 'doo' =ドゥ, etc.
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answer