Hiragana

There are 3 kinds of characters in Japanese: hiragana, Katakana, and kanji. All 3 characters can be seen in a single sentence. 

ジュース　を　飲みます

Katakana   hiragana  kanji hiragana

(I drink juice.)

Hiragana and katakana, like the alphabet, represent sounds. As you can see in the above example, hiragana has a roundish shape and is used for conjugation endings.

Hiragana is the most important character for studying Japanese. Most sentences cannot be composed without hiragana. And, most of the textbooks in Japanese (for beginners) are written in hiragana. If you enjoy studying kanji or plan to live in Japan in the future, I recommend you to study hiragana and katakana before studying kanji. Because there are lots of kanji in Japanese signs and product descriptions.

There are 46 basic hiragana syllables, which are listed below. 

You can practice your pronunciation with next movie: Hiragana pronounciation

  

By listen the movie repeatedly, you can memorize naturally them.

あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o
か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko
さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so
た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と To
な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no
は ha	ひ hi	ふ hu	へ he	ほ ho
ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo
や ya		ゆ yu		よ yo
ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro
わ wa				を o
ん n

For this hiragana practice chart, all you can learn correct stroke by writing over the gray lines. to get and print out the below free chart, please go to site happylilac

and with youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r25L_JwPSJc

Also, you can practice writing with free app. Kana Writing

1-2. Hiragana with Diacritical Marks 

There are 23 additional sounds by adding diacritic marks. With a pair of short diagonal strokes ("）, the unvoiced consonants k,s,t , and h become voiced consonants g, z, d , and b, respectively. The consonant h changed to p with the addition of a small circle.　You can learn pronunciation of the below additional sounds (1-2.~5) with next video: Additional sounds in hiragana

 

1-3. Transcribing Contracted Sounds 

Small や、ゆ,and よ follow after letters in the second column ( i-vowel hiragana, excpt い)　and are used to transcribe contracted sounds. The contracted sound represents a single syllable.

1-4. Transcribing Double Consonants 

There is another small letter, つ、which is used when transcribing double consonants such as tt and pp.

 Examples: かった　Katta (won/bought)   cf. kata (shoulder)

                 さっか　sakka(writer) 

Note double consonant n’s as in sannen (3 years ) are written with　ん　＋　a hiragana with an initial n sounds ( な、に、ぬ、ね、の)

 Examples：さんねん sannnen (3years)

　　　　　   あんない　annai (guide)

 

1-5. Other Issues Relating to Transcription and Pronunciation 

A.     Long Vowels

When the same vowel is placed one right after the other, the pronunciation of the vowel becomes about twice as long as the single vowel.  Be sure to hold the sound long enough, because the length of the vowel can change one word to another.

 

Examples：

aa  おばあさん　obaasan (grandmother) cf. おばさん（aunt）

ii   おじいさん　　ojiisan (grandfather) cf. おじさん　(uncle)

※References：”Genki 1" 2nd edition, edited by The Japan Times,  March 2011, p25-27