Why is テ pronounced as “ti” in パーティ?


If we take the word パーティ, why is テ pronounced as "ti" when in the katakana
alphabet it is pronounced "te." Also, why is ィ small? If it was normal sized,
wouldn't the pronunciation of the word be the same?




How do you pronounce _th_ in _the_? Not a _t_ sound and then an _h_ sound,
right? You read it as one sound (the [voiced dental
fricative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_fricative)). Well, it's
a similar concept. It's not テ＋イ. It's ティ, with a small ィ, and together they
read as "ti". Actually, テイ (regular sized イ) could be "te" with an elongated
"e" sound, or it could be "te" + "i". I don't want to get into that, but
basically they're not pronounced the same, as you initially suspected.

Regardless, it's not unique to this pair. From
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana#Syllabary_and_orthography),

> Small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent
> trailing off sounds (ハァ haa, ネェ nee), but in katakana they are more often
> used in yōon-like extended digraphs designed to represent phonemes not
> present in Japanese; examples include チェ (che) in チェンジ chenji ("change"), ファ
> (fa) in ファミリー famirī ("family") and ウィ (wi) and ディ (di) in ウィキペディア
> Wikipedia.

I didn't quickly find a duplicate, but here's a somewhat similar question:
[Why is じどうしゃ (jidoushiya), jidōsha
instead?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/50297/11792)

One of the answers makes reference to the following:

> Additional Letters [![ァ    ィ   ゥ   ェ   ォ
> ヴ](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcCww.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcCww.png)
>
>   * These additional letters are invented in modern era to describe the
> sound of foreign languages.
>

>
> Examples  
>  ファ[fa] ティ[ti] ドゥ[du] ウェ[we] フォ[fo]
>
>   * ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ and ォ(small ア[a] イ[i] ウ[u] エ[e] オ[o]) are attached after
> particular letters.
>

>
> Examples  
>  ヴァ[va] ヴィ[vi] ヴ[vu] ヴェ[ve] ヴォ[vo]
>
>   * ヴ is used for [v] sound.
>




How do you pronounce _th_ in _the_? Not a _t_ sound and then an _h_ sound,
right? You read it as one sound (the [voiced dental
fricative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_fricative)). Well, it's
a similar concept. It's not テ＋イ. It's ティ, with a small ィ, and together they
read as "ti". Actually, テイ (regular sized イ) could be "te" with an elongated
"e" sound, or it could be "te" + "i". I don't want to get into that, but
basically they're not pronounced the same, as you initially suspected.

Regardless, it's not unique to this pair. From
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana#Syllabary_and_orthography),

> Small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent
> trailing off sounds (ハァ haa, ネェ nee), but in katakana they are more often
> used in yōon-like extended digraphs designed to represent phonemes not
> present in Japanese; examples include チェ (che) in チェンジ chenji ("change"), ファ
> (fa) in ファミリー famirī ("family") and ウィ (wi) and ディ (di) in ウィキペディア
> Wikipedia.

I didn't quickly find a duplicate, but here's a somewhat similar question:
[Why is じどうしゃ (jidoushiya), jidōsha
instead?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/50297/11792)

One of the answers makes reference to the following:

> Additional Letters [![ァ    ィ   ゥ   ェ   ォ
> ヴ](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcCww.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BcCww.png)
>
>   * These additional letters are invented in modern era to describe the
> sound of foreign languages.
>

>
> Examples  
>  ファ[fa] ティ[ti] ドゥ[du] ウェ[we] フォ[fo]
>
>   * ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ and ォ(small ア[a] イ[i] ウ[u] エ[e] オ[o]) are attached after
> particular letters.
>

>
> Examples  
>  ヴァ[va] ヴィ[vi] ヴ[vu] ヴェ[ve] ヴォ[vo]
>
>   * ヴ is used for [v] sound.
>

