Yahoo! GeoCities Member Banner Exchange Join - Info 

Learn Hiragana and Katakana




The Japanese people use a combination of three different systems of writing. One style is called KANJI, which is Chinese writing. The other two styles are called HIRAGANA and KATAKANA. Hiragana is used for Japanese words, while Katakana is used for imported words and names. You will spot imported words easily by looking for the Katakana characters.

The pronounciation between the two is essentially the same, but they have different shapes, just like English has capital letters and small letters, script and printing.

To start off, we are going to cover Hiragana, because learning Hiragana is enough for beginners to be able to learn Japanese grammar and learn some basic Japanese words.

Before we start: Japanese characters are written vertically from top to bottom, and lines are written from right to left. The title of a book is on the right side of the front cover. Japanese can be also written exactly like European languages, i.e. characters are written horizontally from left to right, lines from top to bottom. Newspapers and novels are almost always written in the vertical way, and scientific books are almost always written in the horizontal way.

In the lessons, I will be showing the Basic 46 characters with a few examples of how they are written to form words. Also, I will show you the 20 Dakuon characters that go along with K, S, T and H.

Finally there will be the 5 Handakuon characters that also go along with H. Don't let all this scare you. In fact, it is quite easy.

Enough of the chit chat and let's get started.


Hiragana

Back to Home page


This page hosted by GeoCities Get your own Free Home Page