The Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries can mostly be described as phonetic. But there are two exceptions, the two pairs of syllables modified to be voiced with the dakuten diacritic which turns them into homophones:
- す (su) → ず (zu); つ (tsu) → づ (zu)
- し (shi) → じ (ji); ち (chi) → ぢ (ji)
The same goes for katakana:
- ス (su) → ズ (zu); ツ (tsu) → ヅ (zu)
- シ (shi) → ジ (ji); チ (chi) → ヂ (zi)
So are these pairs always pronounced the same or are there sometimes subtle differences? The former of each pair seems to be the more common, are the latter in each pair much used? How does one choose which to use when spelling words in kana? What about for spelling foreign words or names in kana?
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