Japanese Lesson Number 2: Hiragana

In written Japanese there are 3 different sets of characters.

Hiragana:

Hiragana is the basic Japanese… alphabet… we’ll call it that. Hiragana is, in my opinion, the easiest to learn. It took me roughly a week or two, of practicing everyday to learn it. Now at my stage i can read it without thinking. Hiragana is used for particles (to be explained in another lesson), for suffixes like -san, -chan, -kun etc and it is also used where there is no Kanji for the word. With Hiragana there are 5 vowels and 39 vowel-constant unions (as wikipedia calls it lol). The character’s sounds can be changed in many ways: by adding ゛or ゜ to the character ; but adding a small tsu  っ which will double the following constant eg. Katta かった ; There are also small versions of the characters ya や, yu　ゆ and yo　よ, which manipulate the sound of the character before it (usually used with a character ending with a i) E.g. ちゃん the suffix chan.

Here is a list / table of Hiragana:

     a あ　　iい　　uう　　eえ　　oお

  ka か　 ki き　   ku く　 ke け　 ko こ

  ga が　 gi ぎ　 gu ぐ　 ge げ　  go ご

  sa さ　 shi し　 su す　 se せ　 so そ

  za ざ　     ji  じ　 zu ず　 ze ぜ      zo ぞ

  ta  た     chi ち　 tsu つ        te て　 to と

 da  だ　   di ぢ　 du づ　 de で　 do ど

 na  な　   ni に　 nu ぬ　 ne ね　 no の

 ha  は　 hi ひ　    fu ふ　 he へ　 ho ほ

 ba  ば　 bi び　   bu ぶ　 be べ　 bo ぼ

  pa ぱ　 pi ぴ　   pu ぷ　 pe ぺ　 po ぽ

  ma ま　 mi み　mu む　 me め　 mo も

   ra ら　    ri り　    ru る　    re れ　    ro ろ

   ya や　                  yu ゆ　　　             yo よ

    wa わ　　　　　　　　　                  wo を

    n ん

    kya きゃ                kyu きゅ　　           kyo きょ

    gya ぎゃ　           gyu  ぎゅ                  gyo ぎょ

    sha  しゃ                shu  しゅ                   sho しょ

       ja   じゃ                   ju  じゅ                      jo じょ

    cha  ちゃ                chu ちゅ                   cho ちょ

    nya  にゃ               nyu にゅ                  nyo にょ

    hya  ひゃ               hyu ひゅ                  hyo ひょ

     bya びゃ               byu びゅ                 byo びょ

     pya ぴゃ               pyu ぴゅ                pyo  ぴょ

    mya みゃ             myu みゅ               myo みょ

      rya りゃ                ryu りゅ                 ryo  りょ

 

Next Time…… Katakana

Lu x

 

Japanese Lesson Number 1: Basic Greetings

Here are some basic Japanese greetings etc. Hopefully these will come in useful for you at some point.
I may have to upload an audio track of me reading these out to help with pronounciation.

Good Morning Formal: Ohayou Gozaimasu おはようございます
Informal: Ohayou 　　　　　　おはよう

Good Afternoon Konnichiwa こんにちは

Good Evening Konbanwa こんばんは

Good Night Formal: Oyasuminasai おやすみなさい
Informal: Oyasumi　　　　　　　おやすみ

Nice To Meet You (when meeting for the first time)
Hajimemashite はじめまして

How do you do? (Also said when meeting someone for the first time)
Douzo Yoroshiku どうぞよろしく

Thank You Formal: Arigatou Gozaimasu ありがとうございます
Informal: Arigatou ありがとう

I’m Sorry Formal: Gomenasai 　 ごめなさい　
Informal: Gomen ごめん

How are you? Formal: O Genki desu ka? おげんきですか？
Informal: Genki? 　　　　げんき？

Hope that helped ^^
Lu x

EDIT: Okay, some of the layout went a bit messed up when i posted, but hopefully you’ll get the idea.