eli5: Why do certain languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet have silent letters when they are transliterated? The most commonly used one would probably be “tsunami”

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eli5: Why do certain languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet have silent letters when they are transliterated? The most commonly used one would probably be “tsunami”

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Tsunami is Japanese and the “t” is pronounced with the “s” when said properly. The Japanese language is based on syllables mainly, rather than specific letters – in Japanese hiragana, tsunami is “tsu”-“na”-“mi”.

The t and the s in “tsu” make a sound clashing the t and s together – kind of sounds like a cymbal.

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