Hiragana（ひらがな）

For hiragana, it can be written for things as well as helping words to make sentences. You cannot write Japanese sentence without Hiragana. You will see them everywhere in books, magazines, newspapers, notice and etc.

In sentences like (「この座席券をお持ちの方はこの席をご利用ください。」, the simple letters are Hiragana.

Here is Hiragana chart:

Like Katakana, there are 46 phonetic letters. From vowels up to R, it is combination of consonent + vowel. Traditionally, we write vertically from left to right. In this chart, we start from right top corner a, i, u, e, o (vowels) then go on to second column ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, then third column sa, si, su, se, so, …. until ra, ri ru re ro. The last column (left column) are wa（わ）, wo（を）, and n（ん）.

Please note some exception:

• In the The Hepburn system of English-style transcription, 3 letters si（し）, ti（ち） tu（つ）are written:（し）si→shi （ち）ti→chi （つ）tu→ tsu.
• If you put clear sound（k. s, t, h） +〃(upper right), it will change to dull sound　(k→ g, s→z, t→d,h→b)
  ex. ka +〃=ga（か→が）、sa+〃= za（さ→ざ）、 ta+〃= da（た→だ）、ha+〃= ba（は→ば）
• For h +゜(upper right)　becomes p
  ex. ha+゜=pa（は→ぱ）、hi+゜=pi（ひ→ぴ） hu+゜=pu（ふ→ぷ）、he+゜=pe（へ→ぺ）、ho+゜=po（ほ→ぽ）
• To express choked sounds, we put small tu（つ）　ex. びっくり（Bikkuri）Suprise
• To express contracted sounds, we put small ya（や）, yu（ゆ）, yo（よ） ex.きょう（kyou）Today, ぎゅうにゅう（Gyu nyu）milk

Compared to Katakana, Hiragana may be a little more difficult because it is curvy.

Here are some popular words and phrases that are written in Hiragana.

Greetings　おはよう、ありがとう、さようなら、すみません

Now, can you read those Hiragana words?

さくら
すし
はいく
おりがみ
きもの
さけ
ふとん

ANSWER