Hiragana | Japanese alphabet
Japanese language has three character sets one of them is Hiragana. Katakana is used for foreign words, Kanji is associated with meaning and Hiragana is associated with sound, like a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko and so on.
For example- 'そこ' which means 'There'. In this word 'そ' is read as 'so' and 'こ' is read as 'ko', together 'soko'. Most people learn Hiragana first because it is used in Kanji and Katakana is similar to Hiragana and also because they think it is the easiest writing system among these three. (By 'they' I am also referring to myself).
Below is the Hiragana chart from which you can see the various Hiragana characters or letters.
Hiragana Chart
How to read Hiragana Chart | Hiragana Chart reading guide
The chart has 5 parts
Lets talk about these parts
1. GoJuUON
GoJuUON (Japanese: 五十音|read as: ごじゅうおん) is the first part of the Hiragana chart. It literally means 'The Fifty Sounds'. The first row consists of five Hiragana characters that are あ (read as 'aa'), い (read as 'ee'), う (read as 'oo'), え (read as 'a' or 'e'), お (read as 'o').
I suggest that you should know Japanese pronunciation before starting Hiragana. For Japanese pronunciation you can check the Japanese pronunciation page.
These five Hiragana characters are represented by the English language vowels in Romaji (or the English letters) as: あ represented by 'a', い represented by 'i', うrepresented by 'u', え represented by 'e', お represented by 'o'. Lets call these five letters 'vowel sounds'.
From the second row there are other letters such as か, き, く, け, こ, さ, し, す and so on. These letters are read as: A consonant plus a vowel sound. For example take か, it would be read as: K plus あ which is Ka or Ca as in 'Car', 'Carl', 'Cart', 'Scar' etc. It is represented in Romaji as 'Ka'.
Take another example- き, it would be read as: K plus い which is Ki as in 'King', Skii, 'Kid' etc. It is represented in Romaji as 'Ki'. The other characters are also read according to this trend. But there are some anomalies or exceptions in this trend.
Anomalies in the Trend of GoJuUON table
- In the third row there is a character し. It is below 'I' and is in S row. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Si' but it is read as 'Shi'. There is no character in Hiragana that is read as 'Si'. So you would never hear a word in Japanese that has a 'Si' sound.
- In the fourth row there is a character ち. It is below 'I' and is in T row. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Ti' but it is read as 'Chi'. There is no character in Hiragana that is read as 'Ti'. You may rarely hear a word in Japanese that has a 'Ti' sound. It is in Katakana and is used only for Foreign words.
- In the same row there is a character つ. It is below 'U' and is in T row. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Tu' but it is read as 'Tsu'. There is no character in Hiragana that is read as 'Tu'. So you would never hear a word in Japanese that has a 'Tu' sound.
- In the 'H' or 'Ha' row, there is a character ふ. It is below 'U'. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Hu' but it is read as 'Fu'. There is no character in Hiragana that is read as 'Fu'. So you would never hear a word in Japanese that has a 'Fu' sound.
- In the 'Y' or 'Ya' row, there is no character for 'Yi' and 'Ye' sound. These sounds do not exist in Japanese pronunciation.
- In the 'W' or 'Wa' row, there is no character for 'Wi', 'Wu', 'We', 'Wo' sound. These sounds may exist in Katakana and would only be used for foreign words.
- In the same row there is a character を. It is below 'O'. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Wo' but it is read as 'O' despite the existence of another character which is read as 'O' (that is お).
- The special character ん: It is the only character in GoJuUON chart which does not have a vowel sound associated with it. For usage and details check the 'The Character ん' section of the Japanese pronunciation page.
2. DaKuON
DaKuON is the second part of the Hiragana chart. It literally means muddy or turbid sound. If you look at the Kanji 濁音 (read as だくおん or DaKuON), the kanji 濁 (read as だくor DaKu) means muddy or turbid and the kanji 音 (read as おん or ON) means sound.
The characters in DaKuON are made from GoJuuON by adding a double inverted comma look alike called DaKuTeN on the top right corner of the GoJuUON character.
For example か is from GoJuUON chart and read as 'Ka' whileが is from DakuON chart and read as 'Ga'. The trend of reading DaKuON characters is same as GoJuUON characters.
Anomalies in the Trend of DaKuON table
- In the 'Z' or 'za' row, there is a character じ. It is below 'I'. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Zi' but it is read as 'Ji'. There is no character in Hiragana that is read as 'Zi'. So you would never hear a word in Japanese that has a 'Zi' sound.
- In the 'D' or 'Da' row, there is a character ぢ. It is below 'I'. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Di' but it is also read as 'Ji' just like じ.
- In the same row, there is a character づ. It is below 'U'. So according to the trend it would have been read as 'Du' or 'Tdu' but it is also read as 'Zu' just like ず.
3. HaNDaKuON
HaNDaKuON is the third part of the Hiragana chart. It literally means 'half muddy or half turbid sound'. Take a look at the kanji 半濁音 (read as はんだくおん or HaNDaKuON), 半 (read as はん or HaN) means half and the other kanjis 濁音 mean turbid sound as in DaKuON.
4. YoUON
YoUON is made from characters of GoJuUON amd DaKuON by adding a small や, ゆ or よ like きゃ, ぎゅ, しょ etc. The sounds in YoUON chart are of two types-
- One is adding 'Ya', 'Yu', 'Yo' sound to sounds of 'I' column in GoJuUON and DaKuON such as にゃ, きゅ, ひょ to make 'Nya', 'Kyu', 'Hyo' etc.
- Second is making the 'A', 'U', 'O' forms of the anomaly characters of GoJuUON and DaKuON chart such as しゃ, ちゅ, じょ to make 'Sha', 'Cha', 'Jo' etc.
5. SoKuON
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