Learn Hiragana

THE WRITING SYSTEM

Japanese is written in 3 different scripts which are Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. 

Romanji

Romanji is not really a part of Japanese language system but it can help beginner Japanese students in the pronunciation of Japanese characters and words. Romanji is basically the representation of Japanese sounds using the western 26 letter alphabet.

Lets talk first about Kana (Kana refers to the 2 scripts hiragana and Katakana) 

Hiragana

Hiragana is used mainly for grammatical purposes and this is mostly used for beginning Japanese students or children in place of Kanji's they don't know yet. Colloquial expressions and onomatopoeia are also written in Hiragana. There are over 50 Hiragana Characters you need to memorize.                                    

Hiragana Gojuon, gojuon (五十音) in Japanese means fifty sounds (but not  actually 50 but more than 50 sounds) and refers to 5X10 grid in which characters are displayed. Gojuon is the Japanese ordering system (alphabetical order) in Kana that corresponds to one sound in Japanese Language.

Hiragana Gojuon

Hiragan Gojuon does not include versions of kana with a dakuten or kana with handakuten and smaller kana, such as the sokuon  or yoon. 

Hiragana Gojuon with Dakuten and Handakuten

Dakuten, and Handakuten are marks placed after Gojuon Kana(both Hiragana and Katakana) Characters to modify the way the consonant is pronounced. Dakuten ( '' )  looks like a quotation mark while Handakuten resembles a degree sign ( ﾟ ) both are placed after certain gojuon characters

 Note: You will notice

There are 2 versions of ZU: ず (most used) and づ (less used)

There are 2 versions of JI: じ (most used) and ぢ (less used)

Yoon

  Yoon are combination of gojuon characters ending in (i) please see I column in table above  plus a small version of the three Y kana 

Yoon with Dakuten and Handakuten

Again you might notice that there are two version of Ja/Ju/Jo 

じゃ, じゅ, じょ(are the most used)  

ぢゃ, ぢゅ,ぢょ(less used).

the ぢゃ, ぢゅ,ぢょ are commonly use for compound words where the dakuten reflects rendaku

Rendaku means "sequential voicing" and it occurs when the reading of a word changes when combining them together example is  

      Kanji:   鼻           +   血           =  鼻血 

           English:   Flower   +   blood    = nosebleed

        Kana:   はな       +  ち          = はなぢ

Romanji:   hana     +  chi         = hanaji

                                          

                                     notice (see Kana above ) the character used was (ぢ =ji)