Hiragana Page 60 Last Bit

Well Done! You Made it!

LAST - Some finishing touches

PRACTICE AT THE HIRAGANA FLASHCARDS PAGE

There are only 5 vowel sounds
All other characters (except n) are made of a consonant sound and one of the 5 vowel sounds.
The not-so-logical-pronunciation letters are chi, tsu, and fu. BE CAREFUL
The R letters are pronounced somewhere between the R and L sounds of English - Click here for more
n cannot be used to start a word
You cannot 'ten-ten' vowels
Combinations are formed using only ya, yu, and yo 'helpers' and the i column (ki, shi, chi, ni, hi, mi, ri)
A small tsu causes a slight pause or break between syllables. For example in English we say a slight pause after "book" in "booK Club"
Here are two examples in Japanese where the small tsu can clear up / cause a lot of problems!
gakki - musical instrument [with a slight pause]
and
gaki - brat, annoying kid [without the pause]

FUN WITH HIRAGANA

A cute drawing made from hiragana is called Henohenomoheji

henohenomoheji The name sounds impossible to learn, but it is simply reading the Hiragana that makes the character. The eyebrow is 'he.' The eye is 'no.' The nose is 'mo.' the mouth is 'he.' And the face is made by 'ji.'(ji = shi + ") Do you see it?

BOOKS: If you are a learner who needs something to encourage you, there are a few books to help. What's best? Well, I don't know. Depends on your studying style and tastes. Follow the link to our store for books and flashcards for learning kana. Have fun learning!

http://www.thejapanshop.com

Review the sounds of hiragana

Thank you very much for using thejapanesepage.com. I hope this has been useful to you. Please join the discussion in our forums. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

gambarimashita!

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ARIGATO!!!!!

Submitted by LenKagamine888 on Wed, 08/15/2012 - 03:56.

Thank you so much!! I'll make sure to keep studying these pages over and over to get them really implanted in my head!! Arigato gozaimasu!

I love Vocaloids <3
私はボーカロイドが大好きです

Kanji/Hiragana

Submitted by Franzie on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 03:18.

Hello. Sorry for the dump questions but I only want to understand this. Why is the title of the page written both in Kanji AND Hiragana? When do you use Hiragana and when do you use Kanji? I could translate the title, but only the Hiragana part. One more thing though regarding the Issho thing. What is with the gap between the little "tsu" and "ssho"? I thought the "tsu" IS already the gap?

The technical answers are

Submitted by phreadom on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 04:08.

The technical answers are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%A3

The simple answer is that the kana above the kanji just show the pronunciation of those kanji in that usage. They're separated over each kanji (by me) to show which pronunciation goes with which kanji.

The little tsu isn't really a "gap", so much as a pause... so I attached it to the "I" sound kind of arbitrarily. Normally it would just be written "いっしょ", but I wanted to put the sound of each kanji over that kanji, so I split it that way.

I hope that answers your questions well enough?

猿も木から落ちる

So in this case the Hiragana

Submitted by Franzie on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 21:29.

So in this case the Hiragana alone wouldn't make any sense then? without the Hiragana you could not pronounce the Kanji? Or is it because there are different ways of reading one Kanji?
Thank you for the reply and clearing it up.

For many of the kanji there

Submitted by phreadom on Sat, 07/02/2011 - 02:39.

For many of the kanji there are 2 or more different ways to read it. So it can depend on whether it's alone or part of a compound of more than 1 kanji making up a "word", or just the context it's being used in etc. :)

So we put the furigana above it to clarify which pronunciation is being used so that you can more easily look up or recognize the word. :)

For instance you might know what いっしょ means, but not recognize 一緒 yet. :)

Many manga for younger people include furigana, and even newspapers might still do it for uncommon kanji that most people wouldn't know etc.

(And to kind of answer your first question... because kanji generally have a similar basic meaning aside from the different pronunciations and slightly different variations in meaning, it's quite possible to understand what something says in kanji without having any idea how to pronounce it, as long as you're familiar with the meanings for that kanji. For instance 見 has to do with looking or seeing etc... so you might be able to guess at the meaning of something using that kanji, but not have any idea how it should be pronounced in that particular usage.)

I hope this helps. :)

猿も木から落ちる

Pass on the knowledge

Submitted by Maniacal_smiles on Thu, 04/28/2011 - 20:47.

It's nice to come back to these pages and refresh my memory once in a while. I plan on teaching my niece some japanese. She's already calling her grandmother obaasan as well as grandma. It's pretty cool how easily they pick it up. Thank you so much for this site, it took me a long time to find one friendly and simple enough that I could stick with. You're the best!

Thank you soooooo much

Submitted by MasterK on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 04:58.

Thank you soooooooo much! You are the best. It was so easy to study hiragana here. Again, thanks a lot for your help! I apreciate your work.

Thank you very much

Submitted by muhammad_chan on Thu, 03/03/2011 - 00:24.

Thank you very much for all the materials you posted online, with your help i managed to learn all the hiragana letters. Thank you very much again.
Now it is time to learn some grammar.

Angry Penguin

yatta! domo arigatou

Submitted by niakins on Tue, 11/09/2010 - 03:01.

yatta! domo arigatou gozaimasu.

after the first 7/8 lessons the rest just fell into place and with your help i learned all of these in just a few hours over 3 days. i totally appreciate you guys! now on to katakana.:)

Awesome! がんばります！ (do your

Submitted by phreadom on Tue, 11/09/2010 - 10:10.

Awesome! がんばります！ (do your best!/Good luck!) :D

I know it felt so cool to me to be able to read actual Japanese when I was first learning the kana. :D And the more you practice, the faster you get. Hiragana comes pretty naturally to me now, katakana a little slower because you don't use it as often, and I'm still a total beginner on the kanji. ;)

猿も木から落ちる

dang..... can't use the hiragana flashcard

Submitted by Joey 鷹 Vega on Tue, 11/02/2010 - 14:09.

i try using the hiragana flashcard that is there on the top with firefox, but sadly it won't work. And IE8 is so messed up, it won't even show the website, my IE8 was working fine last week. Plus not only that i can't read the hiragana in the quizzes, my web browse should be able to display it.

「鷹の魂は消えないで空の中に永遠に住む。」 "A Hawk's spirit never dies, for it lives on forever in the sky"
-Joey Vega

i had the same issue!

Submitted by niakins on Tue, 11/09/2010 - 03:05.

idk if it's okay to post links here but i used this site instead for flashcard style learning:

http://www.realkana.com/hiragana/

domo arigatou

Submitted by blis on Wed, 10/06/2010 - 00:23.

thank you very much for the site.it is extremely usefull.thank god there are still people who share their knowledge with the others too.

Thanks!

Submitted by blah1898 on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 13:52.

Now I know all hiragana, and now I can read the title of the page, it says (If i'm not wrong):
nihongo wo itsu sho ni pen kyou shimashou (I don't know how does the spacing go, sorry)

Close! :)

Submitted by phreadom on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 14:38.

Close! :)

nihongo wo issho ni benkyou shimashou

The small tsu っ rather than normal sized つ inserts sort of a pause before the next sound. Like doubling the letter. Think of the kk in bookkeeper.

Actually Clay even has right on this page's lesson some audio examples of the っ/つ difference. :) Check 'em out! ;)

Then the べ (be) instead of ぺ (pe) is a little hard to see. "Benkyou" is to study. "Issho ni" is together. So basically it's saying "Let's study Japanese together!"　:)

猿も木から落ちる

arigato gozimas

Submitted by shinji88 on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 07:18.

thank you for this wonderful site
I've finally finished hiragana and now i can't wait to start with katakana :)

woohoo :)

Submitted by aL69 on Sun, 08/15/2010 - 09:31.

finally... after a couple of weeks of lessons... i think i have the hang of it. thanks for the lessons guys.
...
...
now on to katakana!

EDIT: I just noticed. the henohenomoheji face... looks like something that i would see when i look at a teruterubozu.

ありがとう!! ^_________^

Submitted by dana-chan on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 23:13.

yaaaaaaaaaay
i finished hiragana^__^
i'm so happy
thank you very much:)

おめでとう！ (Congratulations!) :D

Submitted by phreadom on Tue, 07/27/2010 - 06:45.

おめでとう！ (Congratulations!) :D

猿も木から落ちる

Thank you!!

Submitted by Bay512 on Thu, 07/08/2010 - 13:09.

Thank you so much for these pages! It only took me three days to learn all the hiragana!

Thanks

Submitted by lucky loser on Tue, 07/06/2010 - 05:18.

Yet thanks so much for making this available online. I wonder how long it will take until I can ready hiragana like I do the English alphabet.

Arigatou gozaimasu

Thank you

Submitted by 11481stargazer on Sat, 04/17/2010 - 22:16.

Would like to THANK YOU for making this page available online... and for free.
I really appreciate your efforts for making this page.

This is such a great help for me...

God bless...

thank you!

Submitted by arisu94 on Sat, 04/03/2010 - 12:32.

thanks so much!! it only took me a week to learn all of them! i didn't know it could be this easy to learn hiragana. next is katakana so im hoping it is simple like this one. you have helped me learn probably half of one of my native languages.

Nice entry

Submitted by lamij (not verified) on Sat, 03/20/2010 - 18:18.

Nice entry

Thank you so much!

Submitted by Layelle on Tue, 03/16/2010 - 01:20.

Thanks a bunch! I was suprised how fast I learned all the hirigana, it took me about 2 weeks. I never thought that learning Japanese could be so easy!

"We all can be only who we are, no more, no less."

Whohoo!

Submitted by clay on Tue, 03/16/2010 - 04:01.

Whohoo!

TheJapanShop.com- Japanese language learning materials
Checkout our iPhone apps: TheJapanesePage.com/iPhone

Thaaaanks a looooot !!

Submitted by Adamu-san on Sun, 02/07/2010 - 05:53.

This is rly an awesome site . The lessons are great and it took me less than two weeks to finish learning hiragana ..

Honto Arigatou Gozaimasu ! ( I realize that's what the post below me says but I was very happy that I was able to read and understand it :D ) ..

Now onto Katakana ..

Great! I love to hear how

Submitted by clay on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 06:48.

Great! I love to hear how long it took people to learn hiragana. Check out our Audio readers to practice reading your hiragana (Learn > Audio)

TheJapanShop.com- Japanese language learning materials
Checkout our iPhone apps: TheJapanesePage.com/iPhone

ほんとありがとうございます～！

Submitted by Reitaa on Sun, 02/07/2010 - 01:31.

really guys you made my life half easier with these teaching methods!
Certainly i will tell people about this website!

and of course i will keep using it!

Thanks! Please also tell

Submitted by clay on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 06:46.

Thanks! Please also tell them about http://www.thejapanshop.com :)

TheJapanShop.com- Japanese language learning materials
Checkout our iPhone apps: TheJapanesePage.com/iPhone

Nice ^^ Hahahaha..

Submitted by Luluch on Sat, 08/22/2009 - 16:13.

It's Too Nice.. Now I Can Learn The Hiragana To Katakana Letters Too Fast By Drawing ^^.. I Liked It ^^..

Arigatou!

Submitted by catbunny38 on Sun, 07/19/2009 - 01:24.

Thank you so much for making these pages! I learned all of the hiragana in about two weeks - I'm on my way to learning Japanese! Again, thank you so much! Arigatou!

amazing! arigatou gozaimasu i

Submitted by nayomeryukamycah on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 17:57.

amazing! arigatou gozaimasu i learned a lot!

fast

Submitted by kris1 on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 05:53.

It was odd, it only took my about less than 2 hours to remember all hirigana.
thanks a lot =))))

Thenk you

Submitted by sad15 on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 01:31.

I wasn't able to follow any japanese course because I cannot read hiragana! In one month I've learned all hiraganas with your wonderful site! Thank you very much for your great job!