HIRAGANA, ONE OF THE MANY.

READING JAPANESE

Created by Basil Ramos

A VERY, VERY, VERY BRIEF HISTORY

Japanese is a beautiful language with a rich history, traditionally

without any writing system at all. It wasn’t until Chinese traders had
dealings with Japan that a writing system was introduced. But due to
Chinese being a completely different language and Japanese already
being a language of its own the Chinese characters brought over were
formatted and changed throughout history to give us what we have
today.

HIRAGANA

literally means simple writing system

Hiragana is one of two syllabaries used commonly in Japanese. A

syllabary is a series of characters that represent syllables or sounds to
serve as an alphabet. In Japanese the various writing systems each serve
a specific purpose and therefore each have different use. Hiragana is
commonly used for simple words, postpositions, and conjugating.

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LEARNING TO READ AGAIN

VOWELS

The Japanese language has only 5 vowels, Yes only 5
They are read
as follows

あ ah, as in car

い i, as in key

う u, as in moo

え e, as in edge

お o, as in Joe

It’s so simple you can already read this “うえ” …. that means Up. (ue)

Now this “あい” …. that means Love. (ai)

And then we have the consonants, to simplify it all I’ve added a chart to
the next page. Feel free to go review it regularly as we go about our
learning activities.

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You’ll notice most hiragana consist of a consonant followed by a vowel,
the only exceptions are あ、い、う、え、お、and ん. It’s very
common in the English language to put stress on one part of a word for
example the word “monster”. We put stress on the first half of the word
“mon” it would just sound stupid if we were to stress the “ster” at the end.
In Japanese each syllable is given even stress and time.

I’ll break down some simple words for you,

たなか… TA NA KA… A common family name.

いく… I KU… To go.

うえ… U E… Up.

ほんだ… HO N DA… Family name (which is also a well-known auto

company), remember that the HO is pronounced as Hoe and not Ha.

EXERCISES

Exercise 1.1

Among the following Hiragana, which one is read as “ah”?

ろ
う
あ

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Exercise 1.2

Among the following Hiragana, which symbol(s) begins with the “k”
consonant/sound?

て
お
き

Exercise 1.3

Among the following Hiragana, which symbol(s) begins with the “t”
consonant/sound?

き
て
と

Exercise 1.4

Among the following Hiragana, which symbol(s) ends with the “ah”
vowel/sound?

た
す
よ

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TENTEN （点々）.

Let’s go into what tenten are. Tenten (点々) quite literally means “dots”.
You’ll see tenten hovering just over the right corner of some Hiragana.
Some examples are ぱ、び、and だ, these are read as “pa”, “bi”, and “da”.
Tenten tend to take a hiragana that already existed and give the consonant
a slight change as seen in how “か” becomes “が” (“ka” becomes “ga”)
or “は” becomes “ぱ” (“ha” becomes “pa”).

Exercise 1.5

The following are names of cities in Hiragana, what are the coinciding
English names of each city?

1.ろんどん
2. ぱり
3. もすくわ
4. かいろ
5. へるしんき
6. ばんこく
7. ふらんくふると
8. ぶだぺすと
9. さおぱうろ

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DRAGGING OUT VOWELS “ー” AND LITTLE HIRAGANA “きゃ”.

In the next few exercises you’ll see some new uses of hiragana.
You’ll see “ー” placed after a hiragana, all it does is drag out the vowel of
the preceding symbol for a beat longer. Such as in the word “Rome”
which is read as “ろーむ” (don’t forget to hold that “o” a bit longer to
sound like a native). You will also see a that some hiragana are smaller
than those surrounding them, for example “きゃ” or“しょ” (notice how the
second hiragana is much smaller than that preceding it) these are not read
as “kiya” or “shiyo” but rather “kya” and “sho”. The smaller hiragana is
merged with the larger preceding it and both work as one.

Exercise 1.6

The following are “loan” words, or words borrowed from English and
commonly used in Japanese. Match the Japanese word with one of the
following English words. (taxi, bus, spoon, shower, beer, half, ball, fork,
game, emoji).

1. えもじ
2. ばす
3. たくしー
4. すぷーん
5. しゃわー
6. ぼーる
7. げーむ
8. びーる
9. はーふ
10. ふぉーく

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Exercise 1.7

Here we have a list of countries in Hiragana, write down the names in English.

1. いぎりす
2. めきしこ
3. ぶらじる
4. まだがすかる
5. ろしあ
6. あめりか
7. えじぷと
8. ふらんす
9. ぺるー
10. るーまにあ

Exercise 1.8

The following are names of cities in Hiragana, what are the coinciding
English names of each city?

1.ろんどん
2. ぱり
3. もすくわ
4. かいろ
5. へるしんき
6. ばんこく
7. ふらんくふると
8. ぶだぺすと
9. さおぱうろ

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DOUBLE CONSONANTS WITH THE LITTLE “つ” .

The “つ” hiragana when smaller than the hiragana proceeding it gives that
hiragana’s consonant an extra beat. Just as how the word copper has a
double “p” so does the word “いった” (“itta”) have a slight hold midway
through the “t”, read as “eat’ta”.

Exercise 1.9

Here are various names of well-known people, can you guess who each of
these people are?

1. ばらっく • おばま
2. にっきー • みなーじゅ
3. じょーじ • わしんとん
4. しーざー
5. あれくさんだー • はみるとん
6. ぽすと • まろーん
7. らりー • きんぐ
8. J • K • ろうりんぐ

Exercise 1.10

Match the loanwords with their corresponding English word, （だんす、て

きすと、わいん、きゃっち、ばっくぱっく、ほっとどっぐ、どれす、ぐみ、あ
いす、といれ）

1.Catch
2.Dance

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3.Hot dog
4.Backpack
5.Dress
6.Ice cream
7.Gummy
8.Textbook
9.Wine
10.Toilet

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