some Questions about Hirigana

[spazitude80]

I was reading on the site and learning Hirigana on here and I bought a book on kana and Kanji and noticed some of the symbols for example KI were slightly differant. My question is does it matter what the kana looks like. Also I noticed that only the symbols for a i u e o ka ki ku ke ko ect were on here but I know there are pa pi pu pe po or whatever. How do I get a hirigana and katakana chart.

[phreadom]

Which characters are different, and how are they different? Just in the slight differences in how they're written? (like the little "hooks" on the end of the strokes etc?)

Katakana chart: http://thejapanesepage.com/beginners/katakana
Hiragana chart: http://thejapanesepage.com/hiragana

Please see chapter 11 on both of those pages for an explanation of how the ba bi bu, and pa pi pu etc sounds are formed etc.

Let us know if you still have more questions!

[micahcowan]

I'm guessing that by different symbols, he's referring to differences in, say, き and さ, where you'll sometimes see that bottom part connected to the top, and sometimes not. Another example would be そ, where sometimes the top is a line connecting to the rest, and sometimes it's just a separate jot.

If that's the case spazitude, then no, it doesn't really matter much what they look like. In pen/pencil handwriting, AFAICT, they're not usually connected; in brush handwriting they often were, and that's what the printed style (when it connects) is imitating.