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I came across the sentence `混乱する気持ちもよーくわかる` in my manga. I have translated it,
but the use of the dash (which was vertical in the actual vertical text)
stumped me for a bit (I thought it was よう at first, not よお). I was under the
impression that a dash like that is only used in katakana, and in hirigana
they use the character of the sound they want to extend. But that's not the
case here.

So what does it mean when this happens? Is is a special case or exception, or
is there some rule?

By the way, I ended up with `よーくわかる` all together meaning "I know you..."
(thanks, Google Translate, for being more useful than a dictionary for once),
which seems to be right in this context (In this case, "I know you're feeling
confused"). That's why I think it might be a special case. (Searching よお on
it's own ended up with "trouble brought on by sins of forebears"...)
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2011-08-11T22:13:13.847
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2021-05-07T10:58:53.817
2017-02-15T16:03:00.637
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kana punctuation long-vowels
What does the use of a dash (instead of a character) to extend a sound mean?
In Katakana, we use ー for some long vowels indeed. But words with it, like ユーロ
are spelt this way!

However, in your case, there is no such word よーく、 ようく nor よおく. What this dash
means is that the _sound_ is lengthened. The word is just "よく". So, when the
author wrote "よーくわかる" he meant "I reaaaaally understand".

That's it!
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2011-08-12T04:23:55.663
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2011-08-12T04:23:55.663
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I understand, In Japanese, the long dash (ー) means the sound is lengthened,
just as Axioplase said. Like this:

biiru  
ビール (beer)

keeki  
ケーキ (cake)  
Sometimes, when writing in Romaji, (the English style of writing Japanese),
the 'dash' is substituted with the letter and a small line over it. Like this:

Kēki

Bīru
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2015-05-24T11:16:41.373
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Japanese call cellphones Kei Tai Denwa (literally portable phone) but they
don't use the kanji for keitai 携帯, they don't use the hiragana, けいたい, they use
katakana ケータイ, which uses a hyphen when clearly it should use ケイタイ.

It just makes it look cool and international to use it like that.
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2019-02-28T02:08:13.803
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answer