Semivowel used in a sentence

Semivowel in a sentence as a noun

They're using "イ" as a semivowel here, /j/, not as the vowel /i/.

It's not really as far off as you would think, since /j/ and /i/ are the same semivowel.

Because of this, a couple sounds known as semivowels are sometimes transcribed as if they were vowels.

On the one hand it is laid out logically with voiced and unvoiced consonants each in their own rows, vowels are neatly placed on one side, the semivowels have their corner, etc, etc.