Hiragana Explained
Hiragana – The Default Writing System
Hiragana is the default alphabet for writing and reading Japanese. In total, there are 142 different letters and sounds to memorize, but they are broken in to 3 easy parts below to help you digest better (Main Sounds, Harder & Softer Sounds, and Combined Sounds). Upon learning them entirely – you will have a pretty strong foundation for moving forward onto the other two alphabet subsets.
Main Sounds
| あ ‘a’ |
か ‘ka’ |
さ ‘sa’ |
た ‘ta’ |
な ‘na’ |
は ‘ha’ |
ま ‘ma’ |
や ‘ya’ |
ら ‘ra’ ‘la’ |
わ ‘wa’ |
| い ‘i’ |
き ‘ki’ |
し ‘shi’ |
ち ‘chi’ |
に ‘ni’ |
ひ ‘hi’ |
み ‘mi’ |
り ‘ri’ ‘li’ |
ゐ* ‘wi’ |
|
| う ‘u’ |
く ‘ku’ |
す ‘su’ |
つ ‘tsu’ |
ぬ ‘nu’ |
ふ ‘hu’ ‘fu’ |
む ‘mu’ |
ゆ ‘yu’ |
る ‘ru’ ‘lu’ |
|
| え ‘e’ |
け ‘ke’ |
せ ‘se’ |
て ‘te’ |
ね ‘ne’ |
へ ‘he’ |
め ‘me’ |
れ ‘re’ ‘le’ |
ゑ* ‘we’ |
|
| お ‘o’ |
こ ‘ko’ |
そ ‘so’ |
と ‘to’ |
の ‘no’ |
ほ ‘ho’ |
も ‘mo’ |
よ ‘yo’ |
ろ ‘ro’ ‘lo’ |
を ‘wo’ |
* Gray font denotes that the letter was deprecated by the Japanese Ministry of Education and is no longer in use.
The ‘ん’ and ‘っ’ Sounds
| ん ‘n’ – ‘hard consonant, no vowel sound’ |
っ ‘doubles the following consonant sound’ |
Unlike the other 45 main letters, the ‘ん’ sound has no vowel following it. It is simply a hard consonant that is pronounced ‘n’ that you’ll occassionally see from time to time in spellings for words; for example: かん refers to ‘kan’, like the ‘kan’ in ‘kanji’. We would read this as ‘ka’-'n’.
The ‘っ’ symbol usually precedes a consonant, and doubles the sound it would normally make. As an example, let’s look at the word: ‘しゃっくり’, which means ‘hiccup’ in English. The way we would pronounce this word would be ‘sha’-'kku’-'ri’. Notice how the ‘k’ consonant for ‘く’ was doubled towards the middle of the word. This was because of the small ‘っ’ symbol which preceded the ‘く’ letter, hence doubling the ‘k’ sound in ‘く’.
Harder & Softer Sounds
Whenever you see a “ symbol symbol next to a Kana letter – the letter usually gets a harder sound. In the above table, we learned there are 45 basic letters each with their own sound. In the next table (below), you will see that by combining a letter such as ‘か’ with the symbol ” makes a new harder sound called ‘が’ or ‘ga’.
With the o symbol, the Kana letter that precedes it usually gets a ‘softer’ sound. So は + o = ぱ or ‘pa’.
| が ‘ga’ |
ぎ ‘gi’ |
ぐ ‘gu’ |
げ ‘ge’ |
ご ‘go’ |
| ざ ‘za’ |
じ ‘ji’ or ‘zi’ |
ず ‘zu’ |
ぜ ‘ze’ |
ぞ ‘zo’ |
| だ ‘da’ |
ぢ ‘di’ |
づ ‘du’ |
で ‘de’ |
ど ‘do’ |
| ば ‘ba’ |
び ‘bi’ |
ぶ ‘bu’ |
べ ‘be’ |
ぼ ‘bo’ |
| ぱ ‘pa’ |
ぴ ‘pi’ |
ぷ ‘pu’ |
ぺ ‘pe’ |
ぽ ‘po’ |
Combined Sounds
Additionally, ‘い’ sound letters can be combined ‘や’, ‘ゆ’ or ‘よ’ together to form additional new letters. When the letters are combined, the second letter (and letters thereafter) are reduced in size to indicate to the reader that the letter is a whole new sound together (not two or three different sounds all read together).
For example ‘に’ + little ‘ょ’ = ‘にょ’. The new sound would be ‘nyo’, (not ‘niyo’ which would look like this ‘によ’ — note the ‘よ’ is not reduced in size).
In addition to little ‘ょ’, sometimes you’ll also see an ‘あ’ or a ‘う’ following thereafter. ‘あ’ or ‘う’ makes the entire sound of the letter block longer. ‘じ’ + ‘ゃ’ + ‘あ’ = ‘じゃあ’ which sounds like ‘jyaa’ (as opposed to just ‘jya’). ‘み’ + ‘ょ’ + ‘う’ = ‘みょう’, which would sound like ‘myou’ (as opposed to just ‘myo’). (Remember also that just ‘みよう’ in large letters would have a different reading than ‘みょう’ with a small ‘ょ’ in the middle – ‘miyou’ vs ‘myou’).
Additional Sounds Using Combined Letters
| ゔぁ ‘va’ |
ゔぃ ‘vi’ |
ゔ ‘vu’ |
ゔぇ ‘ve’ |
ゔぉ ‘vo’ |
| てぃ ‘ti’ |
||||
| でぃ ‘di’ |
You Practice
Try reading the following words:
Hiragana Practice:
| くろい ‘black’ |
ねこ ‘cat’ |
ふくろう ‘owl’ |
| わたし ‘I’ |
おかあさん ‘mom’ |
あおい ‘blue’ |
| やまだ ‘Yamada’ |
でんしゃ ‘train’ |
ほん ‘book’ |
| しゅうまつ ‘week’ |
ぎょうざ ‘gyoza’ |
はぶらし ‘tooth brush’ |
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