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Home - Language
Hiragana
 
basic information

Around the 9th century, the Japanese developed an own writing system based on syllables: Hiragana and katakana (together: Kana). Of the two kana systems, hiragana is more cursive while katakana characters are more angular.

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Hiragana and katakana each consist of 46 signs which originally were kanji but were strongly simplified over the centuries. When looking at a Japanese text, one can clearly distinguish the two kinds of signs: the complicated kanji and the simpler kana signs.

Among the syllables are 5 vowels (a i u e o). The rest are syllables combined by one of these vowels with a consonant (ka ki ku ke ko ra ri ru re ro...). One exception is the n. In addition, many syllables can be softened or hardened by adding two small strokes or a small circle in the top right corner next to the character.


Hiragana table

Even though one can theoretically write the whole language in hiragana, it is usually used only for grammatical endings of verbs, nouns, and adjectives, as well as for particles, and several other original Japanese words (in contrast to loan words that are written in katakana) which are not written in kanji.

Hiragana is the first of all the writing systems taught to Japanese children. Many books for young children are, therefore, written in hiragana only.

Any advice or questions? Voice them in the forum!

english links

Hiragana Steps (kanjistep.com)
A good place to study hiragana.
Let's learn Hiragana (thejapanesepage.com)
A web page for studying Hiragana.
Internet Shodo: Writing Hiragana
Short movies that show how to draw every single hiragana characters.

product links

Let's Learn Hiragana

Beginner's Kana Workbook: Practice Drills for Writing Hiragana and Katakana

Let's Learn Hiragana
Book by Yasuko K. Mitamura
Beginner's Kana Workbook: Practice Drills for Writing Hiragana and Katakana
Book by Fujihiko Kaneda and Masaya Katayama
Easy Hiragana: First Steps to Reading and Writing Basic Japanese
Book by Fujihiko Kaneda, Rika Samidori and Dan Takuya
A Guide to Learning Hiragana and Katakana
Book by Kenneth G. Henshall and Tetsuo Takagaki
Kana Pict-O-Graphix: Mnemonics for Japanese Hiragana and Katakana
Book by Michael Rowley
Easy Kana Workbook
Book by Rita Lampkin and Osamu Hoshino
Introduction to Written Japanese: Hiragana
Book by Jim Gleeson
Remembering the Hiragana: A Complete Course on How to Teach Yourself the Japanese Syllabary in 3 Hours
Book by James W. Heisig

 

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June 7, 2002  
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