The most basic characters: Hiragana (ひらがな)

　In Japanese, we have three different characters, which are Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. These are like alphabets in English in that they represent sounds (how a word is read) and very important if you want to learn and use Japanese because... who can be fluent or proficient in the language if you can't read and write the basic characters?? 　In this article, I introduce the most basic, yet the most important, characters (scripts) in Japanese, namely Hiragana. 　In Hiragana, there are five vowels and forty-one basic consonants in Japanese. In addition, we have some special sounds with diacritical marks /゛/ or /゜/ on consonants which represent voiced sounds and stop sounds.

　Let's take a look at these basic hiragana.

Ⅰ. Basic Hiragana (Vowels to Consonant N)

　As you see in the first line of the chart, we have five vowels /あ-a, い-i, う-u, え-e and お-o/ in Japanese. And the consonants are usually the combination of a consonant + those vowels except Y and W sounds and the single consonant ん/N/ at the end. For example, the K sounds are the combination of consonant K + a, i, u, e and o.

👉 か(ka)　き(ki)　く(ku)　け(ke)　こ(ko)

*The ふ/fu/ is not actually pronounced /F/ sounds in English. You don't bite your lower lip with your upper teeth. Just make your lips round and blow your breath like /hu/.

*The R sounds are also different from English R. When you pronounce Japanese R sounds, the tip of your tongue is supposed to touch and tap the roof of your mouth, kind of similar to English D and L.

▶️ You can visit Genki website https://genki3.japantimes.co.jp/en/student/hiragana/ for the actual audio files of each hiragana.

Ⅱ. Consonants with /゛/ and /゜/

　After the basic hiragana, you might have noticed that there are some hiragana with dots /゛/ or a small circle /゜/ in the upper right of hiragana. The dots are called "dakuten" and make unvoiced sounds voiced. For example, if K sounds such as か/ka/ is paired with the dakuten, it becomes が/ga/ because /G/ is a voiced variant of /K/.

👉 Basic Patterns with the dakuten /゛/

① K → G　　② S → Z(J)　　③ T → D(J/Z)　　④ H → B

*/じ/ and /ず/ and /ぢ/ and /づ/ are pronounced the same /ji/ and /zu/. The latter set is used for specific words or combinations.

　Likewise, hiragana with the "handakuten", which is a small circle /゜/, create P sounds. The handakuten is paired with only H sounds. For example, は/ha/ becomes ぱ/pa/, and ふ/fu/ becomes ぷ/pu/.

Ⅲ. Hiragana with Small /ゃ,ゅ and ょ/ : Contracted Sounds

　If a hiragana is paired with a small /ゃ, ゅ or ょ/, it's a contracted sound and those two paired hiragana are pronounced at the same time as one syllable. For example, if し

/shi/ is paired with small ゃ/ya/, it will be pronounced as しゃ/sha;sya/ because し and や are pronounced as the same time and combined as one syllable.

*These contracted sounds /ゃ, ゅ and ょ/ can be paired with only consonants with /i/ vowels such as し/shi/, き/ki/ or ち/chi/.

　And those contracted sounds can also be paired with the /゛/ or /゜/ to make voiced sounds. 👉 しゃ/sha/ → じゃ/ja/　　きょ/kyo/ → ぎょ/gyo/　　ひょ/hyo/ → ぴょ/pyo/

Ⅳ. Hiragana with Small /っ/: Double Consonant

　Small /っ/ is not mentioned in the above chart, but it represents the double consonant for the following sound, such /tt/ and /pp/. For a double consonant, you don't pronounce anything but still have an unvoiced syllable. 👉 かっこ/kakko/ --> ka_kko --> Still have to have three syllables rather than /ka-ko/

Ⅴ. Long Vowels

　When the same vowel is placed right after the other, the pronunciation of the vowels gets twice as long as the single vowel, rather than two separate single vowels.

👉 おかあさん/o_kaa_sa_n/ instead of /o_ka_a_sa_n/

= か/ka/ and following あ/a/ share the same vowel so are combined as a long vowel /aa/.

👉 おじいさん/o_jii_sa_n/ instead of /o_ji_i_sa_n/

=じ/ji/ and following い/i/ share the same vowel so are combined as a long vowel /ii/.

　In addition, when some different vowels are placed in a certain combination, they are usually pronounced as a long vowel. 👉 An o-u (おう) combination becomes /oo/ when pronounced.

おとうさん/o_to_u_sa_n/ → /o_too_sa_n/　　　ありがとう/a_ri_ga_to_u/ → /a_ri_ga_too/

👉 An e-i (えい) combination becomes /ee/ when pronounced.

えいが/e_i_ga/ → /ee_ga/　　　せいじ/se_i_ji/ → /see_ji/

　I have introduced all the hiragana so far in this article. Hope this helps! Since these hiragana are the most important and basic scripts for Japanese sounds, you can technically read and write any words in Japanese once you learned all of them.

　For the reading practice, the kana quiz on Tofugu website https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/ would be helpful. You can select the range of hiragana you want to review and practice on.

　For the stroke order (how to write hiragana properly), you can also refer to the chart below!

Good luck on your Japanese learning! がんばってください。