Japanese Alphabet

The Japanese alphabet is usually referred to as kana, specifically hiragana and katakana. While the Hiragana consists of 48 syllables, it is a phonetic alphabet where each alphabetic combination represents just a single sound. Thus any Japanese word can be written in a way that can be read without having to remember how the word is pronounced. So the Japanese kana are much simpler, the way something is written is the way it sounds. There is also Kanji, a Japanese system of writing based on borrowed or slightly modified Chinese characters.

Hiragana Syllables (Alphabet)

The table below shows the 48 Hiragana syllables: To Save this Page Press (CTRL D) or E-mail this Page! Free Translation EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP

a i u e o ha hi fu he ho

ka ki ku ke ko ma mi mu me mo

sa shi su se so ya

ta chi tsu te to ra ri

na ni nu ne no wa wi n we wo

yu

ru re

yo

ro

Maybe you have noticed that many sounds are missing, thats why Japanese added some additional sounds using diacritics or combinations of syllables, the table below shows the additional sounds in Hiragana:

To Save this Page Press (CTRL D) or E-mail this Page! Free Translation EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP

ga gi gu ge go

za ji zu ze zo

da ji zu de do

ba bi bu be bo

pa pi pu pe po

kya kyu kyo

sha shu sho

cha chu cho

hya hyu hyo

pya pyu pyo

gya gya gyo rya

ja ju jo ryu

nya nyu nyo ryu

bya byu byo (ja)

mya my myo (ju)

Katakana Syllables (Alphabet)

Katakana are most often used for transcription of words in foreign languages. used to represent sounds, technical and scientific terms. Katakana's main feature is short straight strokes and angular corners, thats why Katakana is considered the simplest of the Japanese scripts. To Save this Page Press (CTRL D) or E-mail this Page! Free Translation EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP

EN
a i u e o ha hi fu he ho

JP
ka ki ku ke ko

EN

JP
sa

EN

JP
ta

EN

JP
na ni nu ne no wa (wi) n

EN

JP

shi su se so ya

chi tsu te to ra ri

ma mi mu me mo

yu

ru re

(we) (w)o

yo

ro

For a modern Katakana there was a necessity to add some sounds, below is a list of additions to the katakana, used mainly to represent sounds from other languages: To Save this Page Press (CTRL D) or E-mail this Page! Free Translation EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP

ga gi gu ge go

za ji zu ze zo

da ji zu de do

ba bi bu be bo

pa pi pu pe po

kya

sha

cha

hya

pya

EN
kyu kyo

JP

EN
shu sho

JP

EN
chu cho

JP

EN
hyu hyo

JP

EN
pyu pyo

JP

gya gya gyo rya

ja ju jo ryu

nya nyu nyo ryu

bya byu byo (ja)

mya my myo (ju)

Kanji Characters (Alphabet)

Kanji are used together with three other systems to write modern Japanese, Kanji which is a Japanese system of writing based on borrowed or slightly modified Chinese characters is used to write parts of the language such as nouns, adjective stems and verb stems. For Kanji characters refers to the Chinese characters. To Save this Page Press (CTRL D) or E-mail this Page! Free Translation EN JP EN JP EN JP EN JP

ye wi we wo

va vi vu ve vo

() () () ()

va vi ve vo vya fa fi fe fo

she je che

ti tu tyu di

tsa tsi tse tso

EN
du dyu

JP

EN

JP
fyu

EN

JP

EN

JP

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