I have been attempting to learn hiragana, one of the alphabets used in the Japanese language. More specifically, it is one of two Japanese syllabaries.
There are four main components to the Japanese writing system: hiragana, katakana, kanji and romanji (Latin script). Hiragana and katakana (the two kana) are both syllabic writing systems, whereas kanji is logographic. Katakana, which is more angular in appearance, in contrast to hiragana is used predominantly for foreign words introduced to the Japanese language.
hiragana ひらがな (hiragana) anata あなた (you) watashi わたし (I) e え (picture)
Look confusing? Let's break it down.
| hi | ひ |
| ra | ら |
| ga | が |
| na | な |
Modern Hiragana consists of 46 phonetic characters. If you try to pronounce words written in romanji while reading their hiragana you can see that each syllable matches a hiragana character.
watashi no namae wa Stephen desu わ た し の なまえ わ Stephen です my name is Stephen
Since hiragana is a phonetic system it is relatively easy, and fun, to learn. Many of the characters are re-used to produce a slightly different sound through the use of the diacritic signs ten-ten (dakuten), which resemble a quotation mark, and maru (handakuten), which resemble a circle. I suggest using the free ebook Hiragana42 or the 'Memorizing the Hiragana' wikibook to learn hiragana. Both of these utilise mnemonics which makes recalling each character a lot easier. I found it useful to then use the pronunciation tests in the application Human Japanese to test what I have already learnt while learning the proper pronunciation. There is a useful poem called Iroha (いろは) that I have added to the appendix of this page. This is an old Japanese poem that is valuable for studying hiragana as it contains all of the hiragana characters apart from ん (n). A small tsu character (っ) is used to indicate that the consonant in the next character should be said twice.
nippon にっぽん
(Japan)
| ni | に |
| small tsu | っ |
| po | ぽ |
| n | ん |
*did you spot the maru?
If にっぽん did not contain the small tsu character (っ) it would spell nipon (にぽん) which is not a word in Japanese. When the small tsu (っ) is used it breaks up the sound of the word between the double consonant. Nippon (にっぽん) should be pronounced Nip-pon. The small tsu (っ) isn't the only small character that is used in hiragana. To add to the confusion a small ya (ゃ), yu (ゅ) and yo (ょ) can be placed after another character to create a 'y vowel sound'.
| hi (ひ) | + | ya (ゃ) | = | hya (ひゃ) |
| ri (り) | + | ya (ゃ) | = | rya (りゃ) |
| shi (し) | + | ya (ゃ) | = | sha (しゃ) |
You get the idea. A 'y vowel sound' can only be created with other hiragana characters that have a, u or o as their last romanji letter.
Once I had learnt these characters it was nice to go back to Japanese words I had already encountered and convert them from romanji to hiragana. At this point I am still only able to read a small amount of Japanese writing due to the heavy use of the other writing systems. Hiragana is sometimes written around kanji, called furigana, to aid pronunciation but this is generally only used for uncommon kanji. After the other main syllabary katakana (カタカナ) the real test will be kanji (漢字).
Appendix
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いろはにほへと ちりぬるを わかよたれそ つねならむ うゐのおくやま けふこえて あさきゆめみし ゑひもせす |
Iro ha nihoheto Chirinuru wo Wa ka yo tare so Tsune naramu Uwi no okuyama Kefu koete Asaki yume mishi Wehi mo sesu | Although its scent still lingers on the form of a flower has scattered away For whom will the glory of this world remain unchanged? Arriving today at the yonder side of the deep mountains of evanescent existence We shall never allow ourselves to drift away intoxicated, in the world of shallow dreams. |
| A | E | I | O | U |
| あ | え | い | お | う |
| KA | KE | KI | KO | KU |
| か | け | き | こ | く |
| GA | GE | GI | GO | GU |
| が | げ | ぎ | ご | ぐ |
| SA | SE | SHI | SO | SU |
| さ | せ | し | そ | す |
| ZA | ZE | JI | ZO | ZU |
| ざ | ぜ | じ | ぞ | ず |
| TA | TE | CHI | TO | TSU |
| た | て | ち | と | つ |
| DA | DE | JI (DI) | DO | ZU (DU) |
| だ | で | ぢ | ど | づ |
| NA | NE | NI | NO | NU |
| な | ね | に | の | ぬ |
| HA | HE | HI | HO | FU |
| は | へ | ひ | ほ | ふ |
| BA | BE | BI | BO | BU |
| ば | べ | び | ぼ | ぶ |
| PA | PE | PI | PO | PU |
| ぱ | ぺ | ぴ | ぽ | ぷ |
| MA | ME | MI | MO | MU |
| ま | め | み | も | む |
| YA | YO | YU | ||
| や | よ | ゆ | ||
| RA | RE | RI | RO | RU |
| ら | れ | り | ろ | る |
| WA | WO | |||
| ゐ | を | |||
| N | ||||
| ん | ||||