The Vowel’s
The characters of the Hiragana Japanese alphabet are split up into those that
ends with the sounds a,i,u,e,o for most of the characters with only a few
exceptions. In Japanese there are three sets of characters Hiragana, Katakana
(the two Kana’s) and Kanji, Hiragana is of the most important characters because
it is used more and it's the basis of Japanese writing.
In order to get the pronunciation right you could repeat the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sdAMpT8evw
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
あ
A
い
I
う
U
え
E
お
O
あおい
Blue
いいえ
No
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
1
Top
うえ
*Tip: In order to track your own progress and aid in the long
term memorization of the characters have a chart
somewhere you can see it and every time you learn a
character put it up on a poster or a piece of paper and keep
adding new characters that you learn along the way.
The K character’s
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
か
Ka
き
Ki
く
ku
け
ke
こ
Ko
あかい
warm
くうき
air
こい
carp
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
2
tub
おけ
The S characters
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
さ
Sa
し
Shi
す
Su
せ
Se
そ
So
すし
Sushi
せかい
World
かさ
Umbrella
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
3
あそこ
There
The T characters
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
た
Ta
ち
Chi
つ
Tsu
て
Te
と
To
とけい
Clock
て
Hand
つくえ
Desk
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
4
うち
House
した
Under
The N characters
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
な
Na
に
Ni
ぬ
Nu
ね
Ne
の
No
なな
seven
にく
Meat
いぬ
Dog
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
5
ねこ
Cat
きのう
Yesterday
The H characters
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
は
Ha
ひ
Hi
ふ
Fu
へ
He
ほ
Ho
はな
Flower
ほし
Star
ふね
Ship
へた
Bad at
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
6
ひこうき Airplane
The M characters
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
ま
Ma
み
Mi
む
Mu
め
Me
も
Mo
うま
Horse
あめ
Rain
にもつ
Luggage
むし
Insect
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
7
みせ
Store
The Y characters
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
や
Ya
ゆ
Yu
よ
yo
やも
Mountain
よやく
Booking
ゆき
Snow
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
8
The R characters
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
ら
Ra
り
Ri
る
Ru
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
Re
ろ
Ro
サくら
Cherry
しろい
White
とり
Bird
これ
This
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くるま
Car
Tip: As the Ro and Ru characters might be
confusing to differentiate remember that Ru
(る)is more curved at the edge.
The W characters and the N
Lets write! かきましよう！（kakimashiyou)：
Hiragana English
わ
Wa
を
Wo
ん
N
わたし
I/Me
Practice (renshu) れんしゅ
せんせい Teacher
10
Modifiers
Tenten and maru
Tenten:
By adding what is called a tenten that looks like a double
apostrophe to certain characters their sounds change.
Maru:
Maru looks like a small circle on the side of the character
and is only added to the H characters.
Without tenten
With tenten
K character
G
S character
Z
T character
D
H character
B
This is what it looks like:
かーが
さーざ
たーだ
はーば
To get a better understanding refer to the following table:
が
ga
ぎ
gi
ぐ
ざ
za
じ
ji
ず
だ
da
ざ
ji
づ
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ば
ba
び
bi
ぶ
ぱ
pa
ぴ
pi
ぷ
gu
げ
ge
ご
go
zu
ぜ
ze
ぞ
zo
zu
で
de
ど
do
bu
べ
be
お
bo
pu
ぺ
pe
ぽ
po
Combination of characters
Certain characters are combined in order to create new
sounds a や(ya)or ゆ(yu) or よ(yo)character comes after
another character and in this case the two sounds are
combined and the ya or yu or yo get smaller.
This is what it looks like:
か＋や＝きゃ(Ki=Ya=kya)
し＋ゆ＝しゅ(shi+yu=shu)
To get a better understanding refer to the table below:
きゃ
kya
ぎゃ
gya
しゃ
sha
じゃ
ja
ちゃ
cha
にゃ
きゅ
kyu
ぎゅ
gyu
しゅ
shu
じゅ
ju
ちゅ
chu
にゅ
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きょ
kyo
ぎょ
gyo
しょ
sho
じょ
jo
ちょ
cho
にょ
nya
ひゃ
hya
びゃ
bya
ぴゃ
pya
みゃ
mya
nyu
ひゅ
hyu
びゅ
byu
ぴゅ
pyu
みゅ
myu
nyo
ひょ
hyo
びょ
byo
ぴょ
pyo
みょ
myo
Exercises
Lets practice, れんしゅしましょう、
Writing exercise:
Write the hiragana equivalent of the following:
Eg:
De-su=です
1) Su-go-i=
2) Ka-sa=
3) Ta-i-ku-tsu-na=
4) Shi-ma-i=
5) Sa-i-ko-no=
6) Do-ko=
7) Na-ni=
8) Nu-su-ma-re-ta=
9) Hai-ta-tsu-shi-ma-su=
10) Fu-to-n=
11) ta-to-e-ba=
12) Na-ma-e=
13) Na-ku-shi-ta=
14) Na-shi-de=
15) Na-ze=
Reading exercise:
Write the English pronunciation equivalent of the following:
Eg:
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です=de su
１）わかりました＝
２）わかりません＝
３）すみません＝
４）たすけて＝
５）ちょとまってください＝
６）ありがとう＝
７）さよなら＝
８）はじめまして＝
９）むり＝
１０）ごめんなあさい＝
１１）おはようございます＝
１２）こんばんは＝
１３）はい＝
１４）おめでと＝
１５）がんばって＝
Meanings and answers:
Below are the answers for the previous two exercises.
However please do remember that the following are written
in their hiragana equivalent and there are changes to many
of those if they include kanji and katakana . However writing
them in the ways shown below would still be understood by
people however, it would just mean that your writing skills
are still at primary school level however it would not render
your communication.
Writing exercise-
1) すごい=Awesome
2) かさ= Umbrella
3) たいくつな= Boring
4) しまい= Sister
5) さいこの= Best
6) どこ= Where
7) なに= What
8) ぬすまれた= Stolen
9) はいたつします= Deliver
10)ふとん= Mattress
11)たとえば=for example
12)なまえ= Name
13)なくした=Lost
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14)なしで= Without
15)なぜ=what
Reading exercise-
1) Wa-ka-ri-ma-shi-ta, I understand
2) Wa-ka-ri-ma-se-n, I don't understand
3) Su-mi-ma-se-n, Excuse me
4) Ta-su-ke-te, Help me
5) Cho-to-ma-tte-ku-da-sa-I, Hold on please
6) A-ri-ga-to-u, Thank you
7) Sa-yo-na-ra, Goodbye
8) Ha-ji-me-ma-shi-te, How are you doing?
9) Mu-ri, Impossible
10) Go-me-n-na-sa-i, Sorry
11) O-ha-yo-go-za-i-ma-su, Good morning
12) Ko-n-ba-n-wa, Good evening
13) Ha-I, Yes
14) O-me-de-to, Congratulations
15) ga-n-ba-tte, good luck
How to improve your Japanese?
Although you have learnt through this booklet how to read
and write hiragana and picked up some phrases and words
you need to expand on your vocabulary, learn the grammar,
increase your speed in writing reading and fluency in
dialogue. This can be done in several ways however the
three ways that have worked the best for me as a teenager
were the following mentioned below.
Typing in Hiragana
We live in a world that is very technology oriented and as a
result we spend most of our time on either our computers,
tablets,phones etc. Because of this I have discovered that by
typing in Hiragana you can increase your speed in reading as
well as typing/writing. I added Hiragana to my languages
and so whenever I clicked on that I could type japanese
directly without having to use the sites I used before. Plus it
types straight onto things like word documents and
websites and email etc. And You get to see all the characters
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on the kana table and if you want you can type with that
instead to make things more challenging to see if I
remember the characters or not.
This is useful because it is a much faster and easier way to
type in Hiragana without having to resort to the internet or
external sources. This is better as it is more accessible
especially when trying to type something into a word
document and even searching for files and saving them and
searching the dictionary it all turns up in Japanese
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Japanese pen pals
Based on my own experience getting a Japanese pen
pal or a pen pal that can communicate in Japanese is one of
the fastest way to increase your vocabulary and your
fluency. You are also able to learn more about Japanese
culture and food etc. Many times you might offer to
exchange help where you may help your pen pal with their
English and they might help you with your Japanese other
times it's just either one of those. It all depends on your
penpal. By using this you can find pen pals from all over the
world and you can specify the age or gender even the
country, city, district, hobbies and even the languages they
can speak:
www.japan-guide.com
Test and quizzes
Refer to the following links below in order to test your self
and even play games that can help aid in you progress as
well as the memorization of the characters use the following
links:
http://www.easyjapanese.org/kanaquiz.html
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http://www.onlinenihongo.com/
Learn The
Japanese
Alphabet
Hiragana
Offered in Arabic and English
By: Shahd Al-Baz
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