What does it mean and how do you pronounce あっ?


I saw someone talk about a 「はあっ」that they saw in a book, so I looked it up but
didn't find much, just some words/sites that had あっ in them. (I couldn't read
the rest) I was wondering how one might pronounce っ at the end of a word. I'm
also not sure if っ can be applied after あ only, or other vowels/characters.




Let's look at the term 学校 for example. This is equivalent to がっこう which is
pronounced as _gakkou_ meaning **school**.

Because of the small つ, namely っ, then the romaji is spelt with two letters.
Since っ occurs before こ then the two letters in the romaji spelling would be
k.

> > Thus, how must we pronounce the term はあっ if there is no letter following
> from っ?

It is a good question, and the answer is that we pronounce this as _ha_ as
opposed to _haa_.

_ha_ has an abrupt ending off the _a_ vowel (short vowel sound), and _haa_ has
a long vowel sound at the end. However, we could simply write は, right?

> Well, let's consider the following conversation:
>

>> "Hey, Jimmy! How are you to—"

>>

>> "Shut up, Tommy!"

>
> The person who spoke second had cut the first person speaking off. If we
> were to write this conversation in Japanese, instead of using the hyphon, —,
> we would use っ instead.

So if someone said 「は」then this would just show that one has said the
statement _completely_ and finished it off, without ever being cut off in the
process. But, to show that someone was saying a sentence or a word that began
with は but was abruptly cut off, we show this by writing「はっ」instead.

But because it is written as 「は **あ** っ」 with the letter あ, then this shows
that whoever was speaking and was cut off, he/she was going to say a word (or
begin a sentence) that began with はあ in particular.

* * *

Go [here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1457/what-does-the-
little-%E3%81%A3-tsu-signify-when-at-the-end-of-a-word?noredirect=1&lq=1) for
another reference. The comment below your post has also provided the same
link.




When っ is at the end of a word, it indicates a glottal stop or a “choked
sound” according to [Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%A3).
Imagine that you suddenly remembered something and went “Ah!—” That would be
close to how あっ would sound.

