When the words turn into the small や、ゆ、よ, does that y part get pronounced? Or would it be only pronouncing it as a,u,o?
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I guess it depends on what you mean by the “y part”, but big や and small ゃ are different sounds. Same for ゆ and よ.
I’d recommend comparing some words with both side by side on forvo or younglish (native speakers) or even jpdb (TTS but a good one).
For example ややこしい and 華奢（きゃしゃ）. Let me see, instead of ja it softens the consonant and becomes k’a if that makes sense.
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Yes, to an extent. きゃ, for example, is pronounced “kya” as a single syllable. It’s not the same as きや, which is two syllables “ki-ya”, but it’s definitely not the same as か.
When it comes to glides like しゃ, though, it’s more like “sha”, and the y sound in the middle is a bit more subtle, mostly because over time the “sy” has gradually shifted to “sh”, simply because it’s easier to say. You might want to try finding recordings of the glides being pronounced by native speakers.
… No, that doesn’t really make sense.
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