In Japanese, length can be contrastive for both consonants and vowels, giving the following patterns:
| In carrier phrase | ||
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| kite - "komme" |
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| ki:te - "hoere" |
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| kitte - "Briefmarke" |
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| kitte - "schneide" |
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Note that the last two words are distinguished by their accent pattern. Japanese is usually referred to as a "pitch accent" language, so accented syllables are determined by the pitch pattern rather than by increased length or intensity.
Here is a three-way accent contrast (from Illustrations of the IPA)
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Another vowel length example:
Length contrast on second syllable
| ozisantatsi
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ozi:santatsi
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|---|---|
| hodo
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hodo:
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