In part one we covered the basics of how Japanese Hiragana script works. In this post we’ll cover some of the more advanced concepts.

First let’s review the basic hiragana characters:

n	w	r	y	m	h	n	t	s	k	(blank)
ん	わ	ら	や	ま	は	な	た	さ	か	あ	a
		り		み	ひ	に	ち	し	き	い	i
		る	ゆ	む	ふ	ぬ	つ	す	く	う	u
		れ		め	へ	ね	て	せ	け	え	e
	を	ろ	よ	も	ほ	の	と	そ	こ	お	o

As we talked about last time, each hiragana “letter” is actually a syllable, you combine the consonant at the top with a vowel on the right to get the right kana syllable. The only exception was the final “n” sound ん.

Further, some of the characters can be modified to make somewhat different sounds. For example the “K” column above becomes a “G” column if you add ゛(double ticks) to the characters. か (ka) becomes が (ga) and き (ki) becomes ぎ (gi) and so on. Only certain columns above can be modified this way: the “K”, “S”, “T” and “H” columns.

Further, there is one other column to learn and that is the “P” column which is formed by taking the “H” column and adding a small circle ゜for sounds like ぱ (pa), ぴ (pi), ぺ (pe) and so on.

Together these look like so:

b	d	z	g		p
ば	だ	ざ	が	a	ぱ
び	ぢ*	じ*	ぎ	i	ぴ
ぶ	づ*	ず	ぐ	u	ぷ
べ	で	ぜ	げ	e	ぺ
ぼ	ど	ぞ	ご	o	ぽ

There are three characters to note here:

• じ is pronounced as “ji”. This kinds of makes sense when you compare the “S” column as a whole with the “Z” column.
• づ is pronounced as “dzu” or “zu” but is not commonly used.  Again, this kind of makes sense when seen as a whole.
• ぢ is pronounced something like “dzi” or “ji”, but is even less commonly used.

Mini Hiragana

A few hiragana characters can be miniaturized to modify other hiragana. Namely や (ya) ゆ (yu) and よ (yo) which become ゃ ゅ and ょ. Literally, they’re a half-size smaller. How are they applied?

Think of the Japanese sound “sho”. You might be tempted to write it as しよ, but since hiragana are typically “what you see is what you get”, the end result would be “shiyo”, not “sho”. And yes, in Japanese there is a difference. A native speaker would have no trouble discerning the difference.

So, the key is to use the mini version of よ, ょ, as in しょ. Note that しよ and しょ look pretty similar, and depending on the typeface used a book or online, it can be pretty hard to tell the difference. Time and practice reading will help here, plus as you gain more experience with Japanese the context will obviously point to one or the other.

In any case, other sound combinations that can be made with these “mini hiragana” are sho, shu, sha, jo, ju, ja,¹ kyo, kyu, kya, gyo, gyu, gya, hyo, hyu, hya and so on.

Note that these are treated as a single syllable in Japanese, not two syllables. This is important when correctly pronouncing Japanese personal names like Ryo. It is a single syllable, so instead of saying “ree-yoh” or “rye-yoh”, it condenses together into just one syllable: “ryo”. Westerners have to take care when pronouncing such sounds to avoid making two syllables. Practice makes perfect! 🙂

Speaking of two syllable-sounds, the ゅ (yu) and ょ (yo) mini-hiragana will also be frequently followed by う (u) as a way to lengthen the sound.  This is something inherent in Japanese language where the “u” and “o” vowels sounds are often lengthened.  This counts a two syllables or two “beats” of sound.  So, using the example of the capitol of Japan, Tokyo, it is pronounced as four syllables: と う きょ う (to u kyo u).  Sometimes this extra “u” is written in Romaji as either “ou”, “uu” or “ō” and “ū”.

Also, be warned that not all “u” and “o” vowel sounds do this.  The word りょこう (ryokou, “travel”) for example.  The first syllable has no trailing “u”, while the second does.

Finally, there is the mini っ (tsu). Unlike normal つ, it actually has *no* pronunciation as such. Instead, it is frequently used to put a brief pause between syllables. The only equivalent in English this author is aware of is the double-k in “bookkeeping”.

Interestingly, the small っ does actually count as a syllable for the purposes of rhythm and spelling even if it doesn’t have a sound, and therefore it does change the spelling of words. Compare sekai せかい (world) with sekkai せっかい (incision). These are two entirely separate words, but the only spelling difference is the small っ. For the purposes of spelling and pronunciation, the word せかい has 3 betas, while せっかい has 4 beats and pronounced as “se (pause) ka i”.

In part three, we’ll talk more about how to get used to hiragana and ways to improve your reading skills.

For now, try reading these words:

• しょうぎ – Japanese chess
• きょうと – the old capitol of Japan
• えんぴつ – pencil
• ひゃく – hundred
• ざぜん – sitting meditation (namely “Zen”)
• きょうそう – a foot race
• えんじる – to act (e.g. theater)
• しょうが – ginger
• けっかく – tuberculosis
• しょっぱい – salty

Good luck!

¹ This leads to an interesting problem in romanization.  In one romanization scheme, these are written as syo, syu, sya, jyo, jyu, jya which is more “Japanese”.  In another scheme, sho, shu, sha, jo, ju, ja which is more “English”.  You may see one other the other, so be aware.  🙂

Recently a colleague expressed interest in learning Japanese language and asked me for advice.  I’ve been learning Japanese on my own for about 10 years ever since I married my wife, and have reached a point that, while certainly not fluent, I can still read Japanese without too much difficulty.

Japanese language seems difficult at first, but isn’t nearly as hard as it looks.  It’s different, but it has its own internal logic that, once you get the hang of, isn’t really any harder than any other language. Japanese is different, not hard.

The first thing to wrap your head around is the hiragana writing system.  Hiragana is oftentimes the first thing kids in Japan (or my own kids here) learn to read.  Technically speaking hiragana is not an alphabet but a syllabary.  This means that syllables in the Japanese language¹ are usually expressed as a single “letter” or symbol.  か always reads as “ka” and め always reads as “me” and so on.

Typically they’re arranged in a simple grid like so:

n	w	r	y	m	h	n	t	s	k	(blank)
n	wa	ra	ya	ma	ha	na	ta	sa	ka	a	a
		ri		mi	hi	ni	chi	shi	ki	i	i
		ru	yu	mu	hu	nu	tsu	su	ku	u	u
		re		me	he	ne	te	se	ke	e	e
	wo	ro	yo	mo	ho	no	to	so	ko	o	o

Kids in Japan (as well as my kids here) learn this table by starting from upper-right, reading vertically.

Here, you can see that the letters are formed by some combination of a consonant (the top row), and a vowel sound. ま is “ma” or “m” + “a”, for example. The only exception is ん which is just the final “n” sound for other syllables. It is never used at the beginning of a word.

There’s even a row for no-consonants for “a”, “i”, “u”, “e” and “o”. You can see that overall there’s a logical pattern to the setup though there are a few exceptions. First “tu” becomes “tsu” and “ti” becomes “chi”, while “si” becomes “shi”. These are probably just natural sound evolutions.

Another thing to notice is that a few spots are blank. These often refer to sounds that are archaic and don’t exist anymore, or to sounds that just never existed.

Now, if we replace the table above with that actual hiragana…

n	w	r	y	m	h	n	t	s	k	(blank)
ん	わ	ら	や	ま	は	な	た	さ	か	あ	a
		り		み	ひ	に	ち	し	き	い	i
		る	ゆ	む	ふ	ぬ	つ	す	く	う	u
		れ		め	へ	ね	て	せ	け	え	e
	を	ろ	よ	も	ほ	の	と	そ	こ	お	o

So, reading a phrase like:

にほんのなつはあつい
ni hon no na tsu wa atsui

This translates as “Japanese summers are hot” is as simple as reading each hiragana character and pronouncing its sound.

WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get!

Wait, what about は ? It’s supposed to read as “ha”, not “wa”! This is one of the rare exceptions to hiragana rules. When は is used to mark the subject, it’s read as “wa”. Otherwise, it’s “ha”. That’s the only such exception you have to remember. Interestingly, in modern Japanese, を (wo) is never used except as a marker for direct objects. Otherwise, you never see it.

In part two, we’ll cover some additional details to round out the lesson.

For now, try reading these words and places:

• みかん – satsuma orange
• すし – sushi
• よこはま – city in Japan
• なら – another city in Japan
• くつ – shoe (or shoes)
• ほとけ – a Buddha (not to be confused with the historical Buddha named “Shakyamuni”)
• くるま – car
• かるた – a fun game that many people in Japan play ( and some overseas ).

Hiragana may seem daunting at first, but because it’s so consistent, it’s something that you learn once, but use constantly in Japanese.

Good luck!

¹ Which is easier than some other languages.  Japanese has relatively fewer “sounds” than some languages which is part of the reason why it struggles to pronounce foreign words.