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Compare the following items:
ピーク ピック
The first has a long vowel indicated by the special katakana symbol for vowel lengthening. The second includes the katakana equivelent of tu, written slightly smaller and lower than the surrounding symbols (In vertical writing, the ツ symbol is written slightly smaller and to the right). This usage of ッ signifies the lengthening of the initial consonant of the following syllable, regularly indicated by a double consonant in romanization; the combination never occurs initially (Occasionally, the reduced ッ occurs in final position, as an indication of a glottal stop. For example, the exclamation a!, ending abruptly with a catch in the throat, would be written アッ). Thus:
ピーク represents piiku 'peak' ピック represents pikku 'pick'
"...one-fourth of all the characters used in modern Japanese occur in three-fourths of all the most frequently occurring words. This means that by concentrating on learning approximately 500 select characters, the student is assured of being able to read 75% of all the high-frequency words he will encounter in modern literature." - The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power.
