TEACH ME JAPANESE!

Friday, September 11, 2009

OTHER HIRAGANAS

From the previous lesson, we told you about the vowels in HIRAGANA, how to pronounce these letters and also how to write them.

This is a part two of our Hiragana Lesson, so this is actually the continuation of the previous lesson. Just like in the previous lesson, we will also be focusing on how to pronounce and write the letters in hiragana alphabet in this lesson.

All Hiragana characters written below end with vowels except for "n/m". The only "consonant" that does not resemble that of English is the Japanese "r". It is slightly "rolled" as if it were a combination of a "d", "r", and "l".

あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o
か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko
が ga	ぎ gi	ぐ gu	げ ge	ご go
さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so
ざ za	じ ji	ず zu	ぜ ze	ぞ zo
た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と to
だ da	ぢ ji	づ zu	で de	ど do
な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no
は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho
ば ba	び bi	ぶ bu	べ be	ぼ bo
ぱ pa	ぴ pi	ぷ pu	ぺ pe	ぽ po
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 wo	ん n/m

Exceptions:
1. は (ha) is pronounced "wa" when it immediately follows the topic of the sentence. It is usually only pronounced "ha" when it is part of a word.

2. へ (he) is pronounced "e" when it immediately follows a place or direction. Both of these are very simple to detect.

Note: You probably noticed that there are 2 "zu" and 2 "ji". づ (zu) and ぢ (ji) are very rarely used. づ (zu) only occurs when there is a つ (tsu) in front of it like in つづく (tsuzuku - to continue) or when a Kanji (Chinese character) that starts with つ (tsu) is paired at the end with another character changing the つ (tsu) to a づ (zu). The same applies for ぢ (ji). Since they are used so rarely I wouldn't worry about them too much. I will let you know whenever we come upon a word in which they are used.

Labels: LESSON 1