If you’re new to this series, check out my previous posts under the “Japanese from Scratch” category.
I know I keep saying we’re done with Hiragana only to have another lesson with more sounds in Hiragana. Well, we’re almost done with learning all the sounds in Hiragana. In this lesson, we’re going to learn how to attach a /y/ vowel sound to another consonant and how to make a double consonant sound. Once more lesson after this, and we will be done with Hiragana!
Reading Practice
Here’s a list of random vocabulary you should read over for some simple reading practice. Once again, don’t worry about memorizing the definitions.
If you’re new to this series, check out my previous posts under the “Japanese from Scratch” category.
So actually, while we learned all the Hiragana characters, there’s still more sounds to be learned using the same Hiragana characters we’ve already learned. In this lesson, we’re going to be learning the voiced consonants, which are indicated by two small lines or circle (only for /p/ sounds) in the upper-right of the character. There are five voiced consonant sounds: /g/, /z/, /d/, /b/, and /p/.
On computers or other digital displays, a small font can make it hard to distinguish between the lines and small circle (ex: 「ば／ぱ」) so make sure to increase the font if you’re having trouble seeing the circle. You can easily do this in your browser by using the “Zoom” functionality in the “View” menu.
Sounds to watch for
Learning to read and write these sounds is not very hard since you’ve already learned the characters. The pronunciations are pretty much what you would expect except for: 「じ」 and 「ぢ」. Both are pronounced “ji”. 「ぢ」 is very rarely used and normally only in voiced Kanji readings which we will learn about later so you’ll see 「じ」 more often than not for “ji”. 「づ」 is also usually only used as a voiced Kanji reading of 「つ」. It sounds almost identical to 「ず」 except for a slight press of the tongue to the roof of your mouth for a faint “d” sound at the beginning. It should sound like “dzu”.
Reading Practice
Here’s a list of random vocabulary you should read over for some simple reading practice. Once again, don’t worry about memorizing the definitions.
If you’re new to this series, check out my previous posts under the “Japanese from Scratch” category.
In this lesson, we will learn how to read and write the remaining Hiragana characters.
Sounds to watch for
The /r/ sound is notoriously difficult for English speakers. It is a hard sound between “r” and “l”. You want to make sure that you flick your tongue against the roof of your mouth, similar to how Spanish speakers roll their r’s.
The last few sounds don’t really follow the convention that we’re used to. There is no “yi”, “ye”, “wi”, “wu”, or “we” sounds.* And while 「を」 technically is a “wo” sound, it sounds exactly the same as “o” （お） in practice. As you’ll later learn, 「を」 is only used for grammatical purposes and not as part of regular words. Therefore, it will not show up in the reading practice below.
Finally, as the only consonant-only sound, 「ん」 is an curious anomaly. It comes after another sound to add a “n” or “m” consonant sound. I find that if you always pronounce it as “n”, nobody really notices the difference.
Reading Practice
Here’s a list of other vocab you should read over for some simple reading practice. Once again, don’t worry about memorizing the definitions.
そら – sky
やま – mountain
しろ – white
ゆき – snow
よる – night
りす – squirrel
おふろ – bath
わたし – me, myself, I
さん – three
よん – four
ふとん – futon
ゆめ – dream
みらい – future
むり – impossible
みる – to see
れんこん – lotus root (used in Japanese cooking)
Congratulations, you’ve learned all of Hiragana! We’re almost done with all the sounds in Japanese. Review the complete Hiragana chart here.
My Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/taekimjapanese
*Classical Japanese does have “wi” （ゐ） and “we” （ゑ） but they are no longer used.
If you’re new to this series, check out my previous posts under the “Japanese from Scratch” category.
In this lesson, we learn how to read and write the /h/ and /m/ consonant sounds in Hiragana.
Sounds to watch for
Most of the sounds in this section are exactly how you would expect except for 「ふ」, which is a weird sound somewhere between “who” and “fu”. Basically, your mouth when pronouncing “who” (as in “Doctor Who”) is an open circle while “fu” (as in “kung fu”) is completely closed with your top teeth touching your bottom lip. However, 「ふ」 lies directly in between the two sounds almost as if you’re trying to pronounce both at the same time. In practice, probably nobody will really notice anything wrong if you pronounce it as just “fu”. Incidentally, this is the sound for words like “Fuji” and “futon” so obviously we hear it as “fu” and not “hu”.
Reading Practice
Here’s a list of other vocab you should read over for some simple reading practice. Once again, don’t worry about memorizing the definitions.
Japanese doesn’t necessarily follow how we would normally expect consonant and vowel combinations to sound like. While most are pronounced how you would expect, 「ち」 is actually pronounced “chi” (instead of “tee”). Another very tricky sound for English speaker is 「つ」 which is a sound that really has no equivalent in English. To pronounce 「つ」 (“tsu”), try forming an “o” with your mouth as if you’re pronouncing “sue” and add a hard “t” sound at the start of the sound by touching your tongue to the back of your teeth.
It is often difficult at first to distinguish between 「す」 and 「つ」. The word for “moon” and the adjective for liking something is often used as an example. I got the sample audio files below from forvo.com. Can you notice the hard “t” sound that’s only in the first clip?
Admittedly, learning random vocabulary is not very useful but it is good reading practice so do read over the list below but don’t worry about memorizing the definitions.
If you’re new to this series, check out my previous posts under the “Japanese from Scratch” category.
In this lesson, we learn the next two columns in the Hiragana chart: the /k/ and /s/ sounds.
Have you noticed that the new sounds have the same vowels we just learned in the last segment? As we learn more of Hiragana, we simply add a new consonant with the 5 vowels we already learned.
Just like how we would never write “a” by hand how it looks in a computer font, some Hiragana characters are not written they way they look typed on a computer.
If you compare the Hiragana for “ki” and “sa” below with the version in the practice sheet, you’ll notice that there’s a gap in the handwritten version not in the typed version. き versus
さ vs
「せ」 is also not usually written with such a large hook in the second stroke as it displayed by most computer fonts. In fact, many (including myself) write it with no hook at all. せ vs
「そ」 is fine written exactly the way it looks typed. However, you can also decide to write the first stroke differently as shown below, making it two strokes。 そ vs
There’s no single “correct” way to write these characters and often depends on personal preference. Keep an eye out for these discrepancies and go with what works best for you.
Sushi and other tidbits
Now you know how to write “sushi” in Hiragana: 「すし」. However, in Japanese, it is usually called 「おすし」. 「お」 is an honorific prefix that is used before certain words such as “money” or “store”. I’m not really sure why. Another thing you may often see in sushi restaurants is 「しそ」, that green leaf used for decoration that I personally never eat.
Reading Practice
So what kind of words can you say with /k/? How about romantic love? While 「あい」 is a very deep kind of love nurtured with time and effort, 「こい」 describes more of a romantic, exciting, or infatuation type of love. The same word is also used for “koi” fish, of course! If you ever go to a fancy Japanese restaurant that has a koi pond, you should say, “You know, these fish are called 「こい」 in Japanese.” They probably already knew that but they would be impressed if only they could see that you said it in Hiragana.
Speaking of homophones, the word 「かき」 has over 10 different meanings including “oyster” and “persimmon”. Those two can be particularly difficult to sort out in a conversation since they’re both edible. Because Japanese has many homophones, most of these words are written in Kanji or Chinese characters. But we still use Hiragana to describe how the Kanji is read or pronounced. Don’t worry, we’ll get to it all soon enough.
Here are some other words for additional reading practice using the /k/ and /s/ sounds.
あか – red
いけ – lake
いく – to go
かく – to write
あし – foot; leg
あさ – morning
いす – chair
かさ – umbrella
あせ – sweat
うそ – lie
（お）すし – sushi
せかい – world
With 「あか」, we now know 2 of the 3 traffic light colors. And unlike green/blue, they do use “red” for red light in Japan (and yellow). Here’s a random, scandalous tidbit: in Japanese, the verb 「いく」 is used for orgasms instead of “to come”, basically the opposite of English. But I wouldn’t recommend practicing this!
Um, anyway, why don’t you play around with this cool koi flash thingamajig and feed the fish. Until next time!
Bored with feeding the fish? Check out my page on Hiragana.
Here are the example words from the lesson with some additions for extra reading practice.
あい – love
あお – blue
いえ – house
うえ – above
おい – nephew
おう – to chase
あう – to meet
Here’s a odd tidbit. Did you know what we call “green” for a green traffic light is called 「あお」 in Japan? Actually, it IS kind of blue in Japan depending on how you look at it so it’s not that strange.
The sound 「おう」 is also an interjection used to express an “informal affirmative response“. So next time somebody says, “Let’s do it!” You can respond 「おう！」 instead of “yeah!”. Practicing interjections in Japanese is a great way to start sounding and maybe even feeling a bit more Japanese.
I am trying out a new series called “Japanese from Scratch” by making videos that go over Japanese in small steps in a quick, no-nonsense fashion. In this first video, I do a brief overview of the 3 writing systems in Japanese to give you some context before jumping straight into Hiragana. Post your questions, suggestions, and feedback here or on the video page for future videos.
