Hiragana

HIRAGANA

There are 46 hiragana characters for 46 different sounds. Hiragana are used for expressing "grammatical" elements such as particles, and endings of adjectives and verbs which show tenses, etc. Kanji are used for expressing "meaningful" elements such as nouns and stems of adjectives and verbs.

It is possible to write entire Japanese sentences in hiragana. If an adult forgets certain kanji which are rarely used, he/she may substitute hiragana for them. Since the basic 46 hiragana symbols and some modifications of the suffice for all Japanese sounds, Japanese children start to read and write Japanese all in hiragana before making an attempt to learn some of the two thousand kanji currently used.

Japanese is written in a combination of three scripts:hiragana,katakana, and kanji. Kanji represents ideas or objects, hiragana expresses the grammatical relationships between them.katakana is used for words of foreign origin. Like romaji, both hiragana and katakana characters represent one syllable and have no meaning other than the representation of sound. Though Japanese is usually written in a combination of three scripts, Japanese sentences can be written in either hiragana or katakana only. I think learning hiragana and katakana is a good start for Japanese writing.

I will show 46 basic hiragana characters this time, and in the following lessons I will introduce how to write them.

asa あさ	morning
inu いぬ	dog
umi うみ	the sea
eki えき	station
okane おかね	money

sample words ::

kasa かさ	umbrella
ki き	tree
kuruma くるま	car
kemuri けむり	smoke
koe こえ	voice

sakana さかな	fish
shio しお	salt
sushi すし	sushi
sekai せかい	world
sora そら	sky

take たけ	bamboo
chi ち	blood
tsuki つき	moon
tenki てんき	weather
tokei とけい	watch, clock

namae なまえ	name
nihon にほん	Japan
numa ぬま	marsh
neko ねこ	cat
nohara のはら	field

hata はた	flag
hikari ひかり	light
fune ふね	ship
heya へや	room
hoshi ほし	star

makura まくら	pillow
mise みせ	store
mushi むし	insect
me め	eye
momo もも	peach

yama やま	mountain
yuki ゆき	snow
yoru よる	night

rakuda らくだ	camel
risu りす	squirrel
rusu るす	absence
rekishi れきし	history
rousoku ろうそく	candle

wata わた	cotton
mon もん	gate

haru はる	spring
natsu なつ	summer
aki あき	fall
fuyu ふゆ	winter

higashi ひがし	east
nishi にし	west
minami みなみ	south
kita きた	north

aka あか	red
ao あお	blue
midori みどり	green
shiro しろ	white

sample greetings ::

Hajimemashite. はじめまして。	How do you do?
Douzo yoroshiku. どうぞよろしく。	Nice to meet you.
Ohayou gozaimasu. おはようございます。	Good morning.
Oyasuminasai. おやすみなさい。	Good night.
Arigatou. ありがとう。	Thank you.
Dou itashimashite. どういたしまして。	You are welcome.
Sumimasen. すみません。	I am sorry, Excuse me.