Haiku a phrase in the remaining 12 "on" (it may not be apparent from the English translation of the Issa that the first five "on" mean "Edo's rain"). In comparison with English verse typically characterized by syllabic meter, Japanese verse counts sound units known as ""on"" or morae. Traditional haiku consist of 17 "on", in three phrases of five, seven and five "on" respectively. Among contemporary poems "teikei" ( fixed form) haiku continue to use the 5-7-5 pattern while "jiyuritsu" ( free form) haiku do not. One of the examples below illustrates that traditional haiku masters were not always constrained by
Japanese abbreviated and contracted words Station, is referred to by locals as , a contraction of , in which the alternative reading of "Na-" (名), the first character in "Nagoya", is used. In loanwords and names, the most common pattern is to take the first two morae (or kana) of each of the two words, and combine them forming a new, single word. For example, "family restaurant" or "famirī resutoran" becomes "famiresu". Yōon sounds, those sounds represented using a kana ending in "i" and a small "ya", "yu" or "yo" kana, such as "kyo" count as one mora. Japanese long vowels count as two morae,