-Hiragana Lesson-

BY : Sensei Saguya Ishizaki

By learning hiragana you will learn the basic japanese pronunciation. This is the first step to learning Japanese, in doing
so you create a foundation for the rest of your Japanese.

Before beginning to learn hiragana you must know how to pronounce it

pronounciation guide: https://youtu.be/O-3opZIjwr0

Making your own mnemonics and exercises will help on memorization and will help you learn in a faster and more efficient way.
hiragana is made up of 46 characters also known as “kana” every single one is part of a column such as
the k-column or n-column etc.

Hiragana chart
First most A-I-U-E-O = あ-い-う-え-お
consonant plus these five vowel sounds, so make sure you have the right
pronunciation for these five right from the start. There are going to be certain
hiragana columns where it doesn’t follow this pattern, they will be marked with a (*)
to indicate its difference.important column in hiragana >It sets the pronunciation of
every other column coming after it, because every other column is basically just the
a-i-u-e-o column with consonants attached to them. The same basic sound repeats
over and over and over, with a
K-COLUM
か > ka = carき > ki = keyく >
ku = cookieけ > keこ > ko
S-COLUMN
さ > Sa = sign [focus on pronunciation not the spelling]
し > Shi (instead of si) = she
す > Su = sue
せ > Se = sell
そ > So = s+oooh
T-COLUMN
た > Ta
ち > Chi = Cheese
つ > Tsu
て > Te = te-n
と > To = T+oh
N-COLUMN
な > Na
に > Ni = money [focus on pronunciation instead
of spelling]
ぬ > Nu
ね > Ne
の > No

Stroke order^
H-COLUMN
は > ha
ひ > hi = he [english]
ふ > hu/fu
へ > he = henchmen
ほ > ho

Stroke order^
M-COLUMN
ま > ma
み > mi = me [english]
む > mu = moon
め > me = men
も > mo = mhm+oh
Y-COLUMN

や > ya = yahoo
ゆ > yu = unique
よ > yo = ohayou

This column only has 3 kana’s や, ゆ, よ.

“ye” and “yi” used to exist but now they don’t, instead
they use い and え because they sound pretty similar.
R-COLUMN
ら > ra = ramen
り > ri
る > ru = room
れ > re
ろ > ro = rolling

The Japanese “R” is pronounced

different than the English language.
It’s a mixture of L and R sound
W-column & N

わ > wa = wagon
を > wo = w+ ooh

ん > n = nnnnnn [basically]

Similar to the Y-column this one is

missing characters as well. And
adds the ん character.
 Dakuten takes hiragana you
already know and adds an
DAKUTEN & HANDAKUTEN additional symbol to change their
pronunciation. Usually this
symbol is something that looks
like a quotation mark (dakuten),
though in one instance you'll see
this mark as a small circle
(handakuten)

K-column > G-column

S-column > Z- column
T-column > D-column
H-column > P-column
& B-column
G-column S-column

か > が = (ga)
き > ぎ = (gi) く > ぐ = (gu)
け > げ = (ge)
こ > ご = (go)
Every kana in the K column can have dakuten. When this happens the K sound turns into a G sound.
さ > ざ = (za)
し > じ = ( ji)
す > ず = (zu)
せ > ぜ = (ze)
そ > ぞ = (zo)
only exception is じ, remember exceptions will breed exceptions meaning if it isn’t normal in
hiragana it won’t be normal in dakuten
 た > だ = (da)
ち > ぢ = (dzi) one way i remember this column is
つ > づ = (dzu) by the phrase tada which has first
て > で = (de) hiragana ta then dakuten da
と > ど = (do)

these two are pronounced

different instead of du or di its a
mixture of d+z+u= dzu along with note: when typing this different breed
d+z+i=dzi characters, type it the way it would be if it
weren’t different. so instead of dzu you’ll type du
(keyboard)

D-colu
B-column and
P-column
は > ば = (ba)
ひ > び = (bi) -bee
ふ > ぶ = (bu) - boo
へ > べ = (be) - bench
B-column
ほ > ぼ = (bo)

は > ぱ = (pa)
ひ > ぴ = (pi) The h-column can have two
ふ > ぷ = (pu) P-column different pronunciations the
へ > ぺ = (pe) one with a little circle on the
ほ > ぽ = (po) pony top is handakuten,
completely different from
dakuten which has a
quotation marks
Know the difference
Hiragana vs. Katakana
To tell the difference between these two
notice the difference in the stroke they go by:
hiragana: あ、い、う、え、お
katakana: ア、イ、ウ、エ、オ
Hiragana has a more curvy stroke order on
contrary katakana has a more line stroke
Another difference between these two is
which has more edges to it as shown.
the usage of them.
Hiragana is usually used to express the
grammatical relationship between words in
a sentence (particles), it may also be used to
replace kanji to express words in syllabic
characters.
Hiragana vs. Kanji
Kanji are chinese originated characters in which will be
explained farther on. To tell the difference is really
simple; most have a very complicated stroke order in
which katakana neither hiragana have:
Hiragana:　か、き、く、け、こ
Kanji: 愛、名、子、診、吊

when you have already

learned hiragana, indicating
which is which will be much
simpler than you think

kanji
Typing in hiragana- computer

typing in hiragana is fairly simple you just use romaji (same as iphone keyboard in romaji
just in pc) the only difference is that you have many options in what to write out:
when typing out a character such as し there will be about 211 more options, in most comp.
you press space bar and when you have the one you want just press enter and it will keep it
that way

When typing ん and another n-column character they

often get mixed up when the ん is in front. Notice that
typing ん requires you to type nn. When you hit n,
you have the chance you to hit a,i,u,e, or o to make な,
に,ぬ,ね, or の. So you need that extra n to tell the
keyboard, "Yes, I'm trying to type ん."
Typing in hiragana- iphone
For the keyboard you only download
this one>>> 日本語かな = hiragana
the other japanese keyboard below it is 日本語ローマ字 = romaji
all hiragana so you’ll have to move
around to type something out which
makes it more difficult.

with this one you basically want

the first kana shown is to type the way you would with
also the first character a kana but in english letters:
in every column, a-ri-ga-to-u would be said as あり
when you press on がとう but since the keyboard is in
them the rest of the romaji you just type arigatou and
column will pop up the text will be shown in
hiragana
Typing in hiragana- android

in most androids there is a language and region section in settings once you’re there search
for Japanese-日本語
the other way around it which is in fact the most used way is to download an app for this: play store >
search for Google Japanese Input app > install > once giving it permissions it should take you to the
language & input and turn it out. to find it go to the globe to switch languages

The app >

 Examples of hiragana

These are some basic phrases that are in hiragana

just to get the idea of other things they can be
used for- hiragana phrases
Vowels to be dropped

The vowels i and u are sometimes dropped between

voiceless consonants (k,s, t, p, and h), or at the end of
any voiceless consonant.
may also be known as
Examples: vowel devoicing
すきです (meaning: i like it) would be said as skides
instead of sukidesu
あります (meaning: there is/ there are) would be said
as arimas instead of arimasu
 The small つ (tsu)
The small つ is used when transcribing double consonants
such as tt and kk

Examples:
かった katta (won)
さっか● sakka (writer)
AUTHOR (YEAR). Title of the publication. Publisher. note: double consonant n’s as in
AUTHOR
はっぱ happa (leaf)
● (YEAR). Title of the publication. Publisher.
● AUTHOR (YEAR). Title of the publication. Publisher.
sannen (meaning: three years) are
ざっし● zasshi (magazine)
AUTHOR (YEAR). Title of the publication. Publisher. written with ん + a hirgana with
Notice
● how it only happens
AUTHOR (YEAR). Title to thepublication.
of the word after the small っ
Publisher. an initial n sound (な, に, ね, の,
● AUTHOR (YEAR). Title of the publication. Publisher. and ぬ)

Examples:
さんえん　sannen (3 yen)
あんない annai (guide)
 4 Japanese pod
101 hiragana
5 column stroke 6 along with other information
orders i found online and pictures i
chart don’t know their origin from :)

Credits

1 slides go 2 Tofugu typing 3 Tofugu japanese

keyboard
 My Youtube :
The end :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIoqS
Oukm4I&t=774s

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