Final Hiragana Chart and Pronunciation Information for Inexperienced persons

55

The Japanese language is well-known for the sheer vastness of its writing system. Every of the hundreds of characters have their very own that means and pronunciations. Nevertheless, you’ll be relieved to know that the Japanese hiragana (ひらがな) alphabet is not any extra advanced than the English alphabet—just a bit bigger. 

This complete information will take you all the best way from hiragana’s origins to its modern-day utilization. Earlier than you begin, familiarizing your self with the fundamentals of Japanese pronunciation will go a great distance towards serving to you memorize this writing system. 

What’s hiragana?

Hiragana is among the three Japanese writing techniques and one of many two Japanese phonetic alphabets. Extra doubtless than not, it’s the primary writing system you’ll encounter once you study Japanese due to how widespread it’s in on a regular basis Japanese. Earlier than you begin writing with the extra advanced Chinese language characters (kanji, 漢字), you may write something and the whole lot utilizing hiragana.

Origins of hiragana

Earlier than the hiragana alphabet, there was a halfway level between the kanji borrowed from the Chinese language language and what would develop into the hiragana and katakana (カタカナ) alphabets. 

The manyōgana (万葉仮名) system took particular Chinese language characters and assigned them to sounds used within the Japanese language to create a writing system that extra intently aligned to the prevailing language. You may see how a few of the chosen kanji finally advanced into hiragana!

Two characters used up to now are now not a part of the fashionable hiragana alphabet. The characters for we (ゑ) and wi (ゐ) have since been changed by the same sounds e (え) and i (い) within the fashionable Japanese language.

Japanese hiragana chart and characters

Trendy Japanese has 46 hiragana characters. Though that’s nearly double the variety of letters within the English alphabet, the characters within the Japanese phonetic system preserve the identical pronunciation within the majority of circumstances. This whole Japanese hiragana chart exhibits all 46 characters.

Which hiragana characters look the identical?

Sure hiragana characters bear a hanging resemblance to one another. Evaluating them aspect by aspect, you may determine the place they’re totally different.

Studying hiragana stroke order in Japanese is one strategy to fight similar-looking characters. This implies to follow the precise order and course every line of the letter is meant to be written. The identical is true even in English. For instance, writing “b” and “p” or “i” and “j” appropriately is crucial to distinguishing them from one another.

What are the voiced sounds in hiragana?

Along with the 46 hiragana characters, Japanese diacritical marks change how a few of the characters sound. “Voiced sounds” in Japanese are marked by two brief dashes within the higher proper of a personality that appears like a citation mark (゛), whereas “half-voiced sounds” in Japanese are marked by a circle within the higher proper (゜) of the h-row of characters.

What are the contracted sounds in hiragana?

Contracted sounds in hiragana contain writing a small “y” sound character within the backside proper of a consonant-vowel pair that ends in an “i” sound. Combining the 2 characters ends in a brand new syllable. When writing them, watch out that the ya (や), yu (ゆ), or yo (よ) will not be full dimension.

Find out how to use hiragana

Hiragana is utilized in three major methods: 

Some Japanese phrases are written in hiragana as an alternative of kanji as a matter of comfort. The 2 phrases for “this” (kono and kore) could be written as 此の and 此れ, respectively, however they’re most often written in hiragana solely as この and これ. Sure grammatical elements that assist you perceive Japanese phrase order, corresponding to particles, are additionally primarily written in hiragana.

What’s okurigana?

If a phrase consists of each kanji and hiragana, then these hiragana are referred to as okurigana. You’ll see this usually in Japanese adjectives and verbs or different phrases primarily based on them. See how the hiragana come earlier than, after, and in the course of these phrases:

• Wakarimashita（分かりました）= understood
• Utsukushii (美しい) = lovely
• Oyasumi（お休み）= break day
• Mochikaeri（持ち帰り）= takeout meals

What’s furigana?

Furigana are small hiragana letters written above kanji to clarify the pronunciation in an easy-to-understand approach. In different phrases, they exist to assist individuals in studying Japanese. Most kanji have a number of readings, so providing the pronunciation written in hiragana permits anybody—no matter kanji data—to learn them. That is particularly helpful for obscure phrases and names!

3 simple methods to memorize hiragana

It doesn’t matter what methodology you utilize, the simplest path to memorizing hiragana is to follow every day—even for 10 minutes between lessons or on a break at work. Tempo your self, studying a handful of letters at a time and slowly including characters as soon as you’re feeling assured with those you’ve been working towards. With constant follow, you’ll have the alphabet memorized inside a matter of weeks or days!

Listed below are a number of methods you need to use hiragana every day:

• Use hiragana flashcards. You can also make them your self or use any of the prevailing decks discovered in lots of respected locations on-line.
• Reap the benefits of mnemonic units. What do the characters appear like? Does to (と) appear like it has a damaged to-enail? Are you able to see the crest of a tsu-nami in tsu (つ)? Free assets such because the Hiragana Reminiscence Trace app from The Japan Basis have mnemonic units prepared for you.
• Have interaction in immersion studying. Simply use it! As a substitute of writing “sushi” in your grocery checklist, strive writing すし as an alternative. Label issues in your house. Whenever you use hiragana on daily basis, you’ll take in it naturally.

Find out how to kind in hiragana

Typing in hiragana requires altering a number of settings in your system so as to add new language performance. Though the small print of including Japanese to your pc or cellphone shall be barely totally different relying on what system you have got, the overall precept for tips on how to kind in hiragana is identical. By default, the keyboards shall be in your native format (corresponding to QWERTY) reasonably than a hiragana keyboard. Nevertheless, figuring out the romanization—or romaji (ローマ字)—of every character is crucial whatever the keyboard model.

When typing on a pc keyboard, kind out the sounds of the hiragana as you’d write them usually. For instance, typing “su” will routinely end in す. The Japanese language usually doesn’t use areas, so the house bar has one other use: changing these hiragana into different characters, like katakana or kanji. In order for you the characters to stay hiragana, simply hit the enter key.

For typing in hiragana on a cell system, you’ll want to verify your keyboard is within the Japanese language setting. As soon as it’s, typing is pretty simple. Like typing on a pc keyboard, you kind the romanization of the character you need, however cell keyboards have the benefit of autocorrect ideas. You may both choose the top end result you need from the recommended choices, or you may faucet the enter key to maintain what you’ve typed as it’s.

Study hiragana with the Rosetta Stone app

Everybody has alternative ways of studying that work finest for them. Whereas one individual might excel at studying hiragana by writing the characters by hand again and again, one other individual prefers to drill flashcards.

It doesn’t matter what works for you, the Rosetta Stone app is the place to go for working towards your new data. You’ve gotten the selection to freely swap between romanization and Japanese writing techniques, so you may immerse your self in Japanese with native audio whereas integrating hiragana at your individual tempo.