Japanese for All

HOW TO WRITE HIRAGANA

1. In Japanese,there are three writing systems: Hiragana,Katakanaand Kanji.

Hiraganaand Katakanaare phonetic and the samesymbol always indicatesthe same
sound.

2. One hiraganarepresentsone syllable and there are five different types in

syllables.
a. Five basicvowels:[a],[i],[ul,[e],[oJ
b. Consonantor semivowel+ vowel: [na],[kil,[yu], etc.
c. Syllabic consonant:[nl / [m]
d. Any consonantother than [n] / [m] when followed by anotheridentical
consonant:e.g. zasshi,kissaten,etc-
e. A contractedsyllable:[ki] + [ya]=[kya],[chil+ [ya]=[cha],etc.

3. The stroke orders are usually from left to right and top to bottom.

4. There are three waYSto finish a stroke.

Tome or 'stop' meansthat the pen has to make a complete stop and should be
lifted it off the paper at the end of the stroke.
Hane or 'jump' meansthat you leave a jump mark before the end of the stroke.

'sweeping' you finish the strokeby lifting the pen up

Lastly, with harai or ,
gradually.

5. There are46 basic symbolsin Hiragana. In addition, there are Dakuon,

Handakuonand Yoon (See 16, 17, & 18).

6. The first five of theseare vowels, [a], [il, [u], [e], [o].

7. The secondfive are thesevowels plus the consonantft.

8. The third are the vowels plus the consonats.

Shi is usedfor si becausethe latter sounddoesn't exist.

9. The fourth, the vowels plus the consonant/..

Chi andtsu replaceti and tu.

58
 Japanese for All

10. The fifth, the vowels plus the consonantn.

11. The sixth, the vowels plus the consonantft..

Fu for hu

12. The seventh,the vowels plus rru.

13. The eighth,the vowelsplus y.

Yi andve don't exist.

14. The ninth, the vowels plus r

'r' can be regardedas the sound between and in
The pronounciationof [r] [U
English.

15. The vowel plus w

wi,wtt and we don't exist in modernJapanese.
o [t] is usedonly as a particle.

16. Dakuon
There are three kinds of dakuon. Three consonantsusedfor them are Lg,,zdJ.

17. Handakuonis [pa, pi, pu, pe, pol.

18. Yoon
There are three kinds of yoon.
1. K, N, H, M, R + Y + A,{J,O
Eg. K + Y +O=KYO *,f

2 . S ,C + H + A , U , O
Eg. CH+YA=CHA S+

3. J +A, (J, O
Eg.JA il+

59
 Japanese for All

How to write words

19. Double Vowel [ol + [o]
When doubteo's occur,the second[o] syllableis written with an [ul in most
cases.[e] + [el * [e] + lil

20. Double Consonants

Everytime two consonantstake place in a row, the first one is always written
with a half-sized[tsu].
Nippon [l: tf iL
The double consonant[n] is not to be treatedas above. The first [n] is written
withfu.

How to write sentences

Don't confusethe particles[wa,o,eJwith ordinary [wa,o,e]-

60