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Eg 'Koizumi'...and generally koi, ai, mai, etc

[Bobby Fischer](https://youtu.be/5ZBKY0SXM2A?t=4), mentally ill world chess
champion and creator of
[9LX](https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/561590/can-you-do-hypothesis-
testing-when-instead-of-a-sample-size-you-have-actual), calls Junichiro
'[Koizumi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junichiro_Koizumi)' mentally ill. The
pronunciation of the 'こい' part is split up into 2 syllables Ko-i instead of
pronouncing it as 1 syllable. Of course, [koi /
ai](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/66584/difference-between-
the-2-true-love-that-kaguya-says) and even like, Mai (eg [Mai Valentine / Mai
Kujaku](https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Mai_Valentine) from Yu-Gi-Oh!). And
indeed [Haruhi Suzumiya calls 'Itsuki Koizumi' as 'Koizumi-
kun'](https://youtu.be/AicR0V2uNzE?t=524) with the 'Koi' as 1 syllable.

But I notice for words like
[しゃしん](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/25542/shashin-
onegaishimasu-%E3%81%97%E3%82%83%E3%81%97%E3%82%93-%E3%81%8A%E3%81%AD%E3%81%8C%E3%81%84%E3%81%97%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99-informally-
acceptable) there's really this special thing ゃ (the
'[lowercase](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/64662/is-hiragana-
equal-to-lower-case-and-katakana-equal-to-upper-case-when-
comparing#comment158477_64663)' or whatchamacallit version of や) instead of
doing something like, idk, 'しあしん'. (What kind of category does this word fall
under? Words that use ゃ?)

  1. So for those consecutive vowels things, do you really have to say them together?

  2. Why is there like a special thing ゃ for しゃしん but not really for consecutive vowels eg a '[lowercase](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/64662/is-hiragana-equal-to-lower-case-and-katakana-equal-to-upper-case-when-comparing#comment158477_64663)' い for 'こい' ? Or no particular reason? Or there isn't even an expectation that would be such a thing?
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pronunciation phonology vowels particle-や
Bobby Fischer & Haruhi Suzumiya - Do you have to say consecutive vowels together?
The Japanese language doesn't even have the concept of syllables. If your
English brain tries to count "the number of syllables in a Japanese word",
you've already made a fundamental mistake about the Japanese pronunciation
system.

Instead, Japanese is based on morae (see [this reddit
post](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/1879x8/comment/c8c8iiu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
and [this Wikipedia
article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_\(linguistics\)#Japanese) for the
difference), and こい and まい are clearly two morae long. That is, こ, ま and い
must be pronounced with the same length of time. しゃしん is three morae long, and
しゃ, し, ん takes the same amount of time. (Don't call ゃ, ょ and so on "lowercase
kana". See the links below.)

The table below shows how the "length" of the same word is counted in Japanese
and English:

Japanese | Num of morae | English | Num of syllables  
---|---|---|---  
まい | 2 | Mai | 1  
小泉 | 4 | Koizumi | 3 (or 4)  
東京 | 4 | Tokyo | 2 (or 3)  
大阪 | 4 | Osaka | 3  
広島 | 4 | Hiroshima | 4  
ストライク | 5 | strike | 1  
  
Related:

  * [Do native speakers think of prolonged vowels as one long vowel, or two vowel sounds following each other?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/30035/5010)
  * [Does Japanese have characters in small size and in capital size?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/87458/5010)
  * [Are there many occurrences of elongated syllables throughout the language?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/65027/5010)
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Moras may form the base of Japanese but syllables play a part as well.

For the video in question as stated in the previous answer, in the second
video there are two separate moras. Even if I clapped out the "syllables" it
would probably sound like: ko-i-zu-mi-kun. This could be in part to the pitch
accent falling on the い.

And on clapping syllables here's a video from a Japanese linguist Shigeto
Kawahara where he demonstrates how his five year old child will clap mostly
based on the syllable: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtOju8g2FSI>. It also
has an explainer on syllables in Japanese. TLDR for that: There are special
moras: っ (consonant gemination), ん (moraic nasal), ー (elongation) and
occasionally others. Japanese syllables are made up of heavy syllables and
light syllables. Heavy syllables have a construction of `normal mora + special
mora`. Light syllables include all normal moras. There is a connection to
pitch accent in that: you can't place the accent on a special mora, which
means you can only place the accent on the first mora of a syllable. If you
apply this to こいずみ, since the pitch falls on い, then the こ and い must be
separate syllables.

To address your bottom questions:

1.

> So for those consecutive vowels things, do you really have to say them
> together?

These kana + smaller kana combinations could collectively be called 拗音
(youon). There isn't really any separation to begin with, so yes you have to
say them together. It helps people learning, to explain the pronunciation as:
quickly saying these as two separate moras but in terms of the actual sound:
when ゃゅょ are added, you end up using the consonant from the original mora and
the vowel from the small mora and merging them. The consonant additionally
becomes
[palatized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization_\(sound_change\))
which makes it sound like you are gliding between vowels when you are in fact
just pronouncing the consonant at a higher position. Examples of this: きゃ, ぎょ,
びゅ.

Also the problem gets more complicated (or easier in another sense) because
the 拗音 you picked (しゃ) actually doesn't get palatized like others. It's
actually the same sound as if you changed **just the vowel** in し to an あ or
whatever that smaller mora's vowel is. This is true for し (しゃ, しゅ, しょ) じ (じゃ,
じゅ, じょ) and ち (ちゃ, ちゅ, ちょ). So when you learn あいうえお you can just add the し
consonant to produce しゃ, し, しゅ, しぇ, しょ.

2.

> Why is there like a special thing ゃ for しゃしん but not really for consecutive
> vowels eg a 'lowercase' い for 'こい' ?

The first thing (拗音 youon) is a single mora formed of a consonant (sometimes
palatized) and a vowel. The second thing is two separate vowels that form two
separate moras. So the duration of the second would be twice as long. Hence
why the 拗音 isn't just two full size separate kana. Technically speaking, the
timing of two consecutive vowels like あい should be the same length as any
other two moras but in fast speech this isn't the case. As such linguists like
Kawahara refer to these as one syllable. But as you've noticed they don't
always act as one. There are a couple influencing factors like speed of
speech, pitch accent, idiolects etc...
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