1

Lesson 1: Hiragana
The first step we will take on your journey through MangaLand will be to
learn a little about the Japanese writing system: we are obviously talking
about those inscriptions which many of you may have encountered. In
these few first lessons you will need to put forth a great effort in order to
learn the two syllabaries.
The syllabaries
The syllabaries are essential for the correct learning of the Japanese language. Most
Japanese textbooks use rmaji that is, the Romanized alphabet to teach the beginner. However, rmaji eventually becomes inadequate, as knowing only spoken Japanese
is the same as being illiterate. If you wish to learn Japanese at all levels and, especially,
if you wish to be able to read magazines or comic books, your study must include learning how to read and write the two Japanese syllabaries. This will be the first step towards
a sound learning of the language. You must get used to Japanese characters as soon as
possible, so we will start with the writing basics. In Japanese there is no such thing as an
alphabet as we know it. Instead, there are two syllabaries called hiragana and
katakana. A Japanese character usually equals a two-letter syllable in our language (that
is why they are called syllabaries.) Thus, the character is read ka. There is only one
exception: the sound n, the only consonant sound that can go on its own.
Both hiragana and katakana have 46 syllabic symbols, each equivalent to its corresponding symbol in the other syllabary in pronunciation but written differently. For
instance, the hiragana character and the katakana character are both read chi.
It may seem strange or unnecessary, but less so when you consider that we have a very
similar system: upper case and lower case letters. Try thinking on the purely formal
similitude between a and A, or between g and G. Do they look the same?
Japanese has kanji as well, ideograms taken from Chinese during the period from the
rd
3 century to the 6th century AD, which represent concepts rather than sounds. There
are many kanji (an estimated number of more than 50,000) but only 3,000 (more or
less) are usually and frequently used, out of which 1,945 are considered common use
(l.3) and must compulsorily be studied at school.
The subject in this first lesson is the hiragana syllabary, undoubtedly the most basic
and essential to learn the basis of the Japanese language.
16

Lesson 1

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1
On Japanese writing

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Before we get started, its worth knowing a few basic aspects of Japanese writing. As
you must know, Japanese can be written using the traditional style (vertically and from
right to left), but it can also be written the way we write, using the Western style (horizontally and from left to right).
Although newspapers and manga, for example, tend to use the traditional style, both
methods are generally used in Japan nowadays, perhaps with a slight predominance of
the Western style over the traditional. Therefore, it is essential to become familiar with
both.
Indeed, many books, magazines, comic books and printed material in general are
read backwards. Then, in Japanese books, the cover is placed where we would usually
find the back cover, and that is why they are read left to right, just the opposite of
Western books. If you think about it, this is not so odd; Arabic books, for that matter,
are opened the same way.
Japanese punctuation marks are also different. A period is written with a small circle
( ) and comas point upwards, the opposite from what we are used to ( ). In addition,
Japanese has opening ( ) and closing ( ) square brackets, which are equivalent to our
quotation marks. However, there are several other punctuation marks which we all
know and are exactly the same, such as question marks ( ), exclamation marks ( ), etc.

Hiragana
After this general introduction to Japanese writing, we will fully go into the subject
we are dealing with in this first lesson: the hiragana syllabary. Pay attention to the table
on the following page, because you will need to learn it very well: it is essential to learn
how to read and write hiragana fluently as soon as possible.
Bear in mind you must follow a particular stroke order to write each one of the characters (it may not seem so, but stroke order is very important.) At the end of this same
lesson you will find a writing guide for each of the basic hiragana characters, where each
stroke order is specified.
The hiragana syllabary is the most used of the two, because it is used to write strictly
Japanese words, unlike katakana, which is mainly used for words of foreign origin (as
we will see in l.2). Hiragana is used when a word cant be written in kanji, the kanji
character is not officially recognized as a kanji of common use, or if the writer doesnt
remember the corresponding kanji. Likewise, particles (l.16) and verb endings are written using the signs in this syllabary.
Hiragana is what Japanese children learn first when they study how to write; therefore, all childrens reading books are entirely written in this syllabary. Later, as children
increase their knowledge, katakana and kanji are introduced.

Hiragana

17

1
Complete list of hiragana characters
Pure sounds

ka

sa

ki

shi

Impure sounds

ku

ke

su

se

ko

so

ta

chi

tsu

te

to

na

ni

nu

ne

no

ga

za

da

ba
ha

hi

fu

he

mi

ya
ra

mu

me

yu
ri

ru

wa

gi

ji

ji

bi

gu

zu

zu

bu

ge

ze

de

be

mo

pi

pu

pe

kya

kyu

kyo

gya

gyu

gyo

sha

shu

sho

ja

ju

jo

go

zo

do

cha

chu

cho

nya

nyu

nyo

hya

hyu

hyo

bya

byu

byo

pya

pyu

pyo

mya

myu

myo

bo

ho
pa

ma

N
to
w

Diphthongs

po

ro

rya

ryu

ryo

(w)o

Syllabary description
There are 46 basic sounds, which you can see in the first column of the above syllabary. First learn these characters, because later on you will find it infinitely easier to
learn by heart the so-called impure or derivative sounds.
Note: You have probably noticed that there are two ji sounds ( and ) and two zu
sounds ( and .) These are, indeed, pronounced exactly the same way, but their
usage is different. For the time being, lets say that we will almost always use and ,
and hardly ever the other two.
18

Lesson 1

in
ya
to

re
ex
an
se
f
sh

sc

T
ra
Ja

yo
re

ylto

zu
eir
,

1
In the second column we see the list of impure sounds derived from other sounds.
Note that the ka ( ) syllable is the same as ga ( ), but ga has two small lines on the
top right-hand corner of the sign (the voicing or muffling mark); the same applies
when we go from the s line to the z one, from t to d, and from h to b.
Notice, too, how to obtain the p sounds we must only place a small circle (the
occlusive mark) on top of the characters in the h line. Ex. (ha)
(pa).
In the third column, we finally find the diphthongs, combinations of the characters
in the i column ( ki, shi, chi, ni, hi, mi) with those in the y line (
ya, yu, yo), the later ones written in a smaller size. These combinations are used
to represent more complex sounds, such as
cha,
hyo or
gyu.
There is no l sound in Japanese. So, whenever we need to write or pronounce a foreign word with the letter l in it, we will have to replace it with a soft r. Lance, for
example, would be pronounced Ransu. No, this is not wrong, nor have you misread
anything. Because of this pronunciation difficulty, many Japanese seem to find themselves misunderstood when they travel abroad. Words such as right and light, or
fry and fly, tend to sound the same, or even worse, please sit may become please
shit! This can cause som startling or awkward conversations.
Dont worry about it for the moment, because we will never use hiragana to transcribe our names into Japanese. (We will see more about this in lessons 2 and 8.)

Pronunciation
Japanese is pronounced with very few sounds, all of them very simple and basic.
Thus, it can pose a problem for English speakers because sounds in our language are
rather complicated or twisted. Lets have a look at the pronunciation of the
Japanese vowels:
The a as in father.
The i as in machine.
The u as in recuperate.
The e as in set.
The o as in cooperate.
The g is always pronounced as in get and never as in gentle.
The r is always in pronounced in the Spanish fashion (not the rolling trill, dont
worry). Its somewhat between the l and the r and can be the most difficult sound
to get right. Examples in Spanish: Sonora, Merida.
The ch as in church.
The tsu as the tz-u part of Ritz Uruguay

Hiragana

19

Manga-examples
We are now going to see some examples of hiragana usage. In this course
we will always see examples inspired by real Japanese manga to illustrate
what has been explained in the theory pages. As they say, a mangaexample is worth a thousand words.

H
ex
O
sc
an
w
H
ta

Studio Ksen

a) Yawn

Katsuko:
fuwaa...

(Onomatopoeia for a yawn.)

This first example shows us Katsuko waking up and saying: fuwaa... The drawing and
the characters pose make this onomatopoeias meaning obvious, so we dont need to
expand on this.
This manga-example shows just how easy it is to practice reading hiragana with any
Japanese manga you can get hold of. Onomatopoeia and sound effects written in the
hiragana syllabary abounds in the pages of manga; recognizing them and starting to
read them, although you may not clearly understand their meaning, is already a very
satisfactory first step and good motivation to pursue your Japanese studies with enthusiasm. (You have a glossary of onomatopoeia in Appendix iii.)
Note: You may have noticed the small, curious tsu ( ) character at the end of the
exclamation. This means the sound stops abruptly; that is, it ends sharply. You will
often find the small tsu ( ), indicating a sharp ending, in comic books, where it is
profusely used. However, you will hardly find this sound effect in any other type of
text.
20

Lesson 1

je
bo
th
et
k

nd
to

ny
he
to
ry
u-

he
ill
is
of

b) Laughing

Guillermo March

se
te
a-

Mifu:

Tatsu:
ahahahahahahahahahahaha

hehehehehehehehehehehehe

(Onomatopoeia for laugh.)

(Onomatopoeia for laugh.)

Here we see Tatsu and Mifu the instant they meet. Their reaction is most curious: what
exactly do those giggles written in hiragana indicate?
Onomatopoeia for sounds produced by manga human characters (laughs, doubts,
screams...) are usually written in hiragana, unlike sounds caused by human acts, things
and animals (barks, explosions, blows...), which are usually written in katakana, as we
will see in lesson 2.
However, dont take this as an inflexible rule; depending on the author and his or her
taste, the use of the syllabaries in manga can vary greatly.

c) Particles and desinences

In this third example we find
two of the most characteristic
uses of the hiragana syllabary.
With this syllabary we write the
units which constitute the true
skeleton of sentences. Grammatical particles, essential in
Japanese grammar (as we will
Kazuhiro:
see in l.16), are always written
boku ga kowashita!?
in hiragana. Here we have an
me sp break!?
I broke it?!
example of one of them, (ga),
which is used to mark the subject in the sentence, that is, the person who is performing the action. In this case,
boku (I), is who performs the action. Verbal desinences are also written in hiragana,
through them we know whether a verb is conjugated in the present tense, past tense,
etc. In this case, the hiragana
, indicating past tense (l.20) has been added to the
kanji . Thus,
(kowashita) means I broke.
Hiragana

21

J.M. Ken Niimura

d) Cohabitation of hiragana, katakana and kanji

Tar:
washi yori hansamu na no wa sugimoto akira dake da
I more handsome than sugimoto akira only be

Only Akira Sugimoto is more handsome than me.

Sugimoto:

...
waai arigat he he he...
wow! thanks he he he

Well, thanks! He, he, he.

This last example scarcely bears any relation to the rest of this first lesson. It shows us
one of the most curious characteristics of the Japanese language. We are talking about
the usage of the three Japanese writing forms in the same sentence: the two syllabaries
(hiragana and katakana) and kanji.
Note the whole text is written in hiragana, the true skeleton of sentences, apart from
hansamu which comes from English and is, therefore, written in katakana
(l.2) and
Sugimoto Akira, written in kanji with the corresponding reading
above in small hiragana characters called furigana. Furigana is often used in texts aimed
at children or young people such as shnen comic books (for boys) or shjo comic
books (for girls) to give young readers who still havent mastered kanji reading some
help that will enable them to comfortably read the text. Of course, these kinds of manga
can be very useful for reading practice for a student of Japanese!
Note 1: Sugimotos T-shirt says aho, which means stupid (l.23).
Note 2: The structure for Japanese proper nouns for people is surname + name, not the
other way round. Here,
Sugimoto is the surname and
Akira the name, so we
would call this person Akira Sugimoto.
Vocabulary: Washi = I (used mainly by older males, l.7) | yori = more than |
hansamu-na = handsome (from the English word) | dake = only | da = verb to be,
simple form (L.7) | arigat = thanks).

22

Lesson 1

What types of script do we use to write

Japanese? (3 kinds)

|
,

Write in Japanese the impure syllables

de, pi, da and za.

Transcribe into English the following 8

hiragana: , , and .

How do we form complex sounds

(diphthongs) such as cha, hyo, jo? Write
them in Japanese.
How do we pronounce in Japanese the 10
g in Sugimoto? Like the g in get or
like the g in gentle?

Hiragana

23

Exercises

he
we

Write in Japanese the following syllables: te, mu, i and sa.

Transcribe into English the following

hiragana signs: , , and .

How is manga usually written: horizontally and from left to right (Western
style) or vertically and from right to left
(traditional style)?
What do we use the hiragana syllabary
for?

us
ut
es

m
na
ng
ed
ic
me
ga

Strictly speaking, does the Japanese language use an alphabet? How many
Western letters is a hiragana sign usually equivalent to when transcribed?

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24

Lesson 1

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Hiragana

25