This is coming more from having looked at Japanese in my phonolygy class than learning Japanese itself (although I have done the latter and noticed the distinct

This is coming more from having looked at Japanese in my phonolygy class than learning Japanese itself (although I have done the latter and noticed the distinction there as well) んあ is 2 syllables, な is one. This changes the prounounciation (most notably the length of the nasal stop. Ki-yu (きゆ) and Kyu (きゅ) arr distinguised by the size of the ゆ character