Can someone please enlighten me how do you properly use the katakana character "ー"? Is it thr same with the usage of the hiragana character "っ" or not? Thank you! 🙏
No. That's the long vowel marker. Whatever vowel came before it gets lengthened for an extra mora*. For example: ビール vs ビル (listen to the difference). A hiragana equivalent would be something like まあ, which you can also write as まー or マー.