Have you ever wanted to learn Japanese? Never really followed any method? Well, I can't really say I'll be much help with you there. You see, I will be learning along with all of you. Hopefully I can encourage you all to start a learning new language. And without further delay, here is Lesson # 1. Hopefully my research was good enough.

Very basic part of a language is their alphabet and Japanese has two main alphabets that need to be memorized, hiragana（ひりがな） and katakana（カタカナ）. Today we will be focusing on hiragana. This alphabet is used mainly for words whose origins are from Japan. These basic characters are all one syllable long, usually a consonant followed by a vowel.

To help learn Japanese, romaji is used to help pronounce Japanese by spelling out character with Latin alphabet. Here are some basic hiragana followed by their romaji and then the approximate pronunciation.

• あ -> a ->sounds like the a in America
• い -> i -> sounds like the e in sea.
• う -> u -> sounds like the u in sue.
• え -> e -> sounds like the e in egg.
• お -> o -> sounds like the o in ohhhh code. 

It's a bit confusing, especially e and i, but you get used to it. To learn hiragana, it is best just to memorize it and start trying to translate sentences. I have created a basic chart to help you learn hiragana.

This image should be big enough to print on a standard sheet of paper and I hope it helps you all study.

Next Time: Hiragana contracted sounds and double consonants.

If there are anything errors in my article, please tell me in the comments below and I will fix them.

2 Comments »

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  Siri_Leigh2010-07-26 14:46:32

  Seriously it does. Not only does it sounds exactly how you would pronounce a letter in Spanish but it also makes it not so confusing. Making it a bit easier not to forget that you'd be enunciating the word correctly.

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  Squiggz2010-09-03 02:57:12

  Hiragana and Katakana are very easy to learn. It is when you start getting into Kanji that you'll have issues. There are just so many! >.< As for things you can fix (not to be a grammer and spelling nazi): First paragraphy this sentence - "Hopefully I can encourage you all to start a learning new language" needs to be fixed because you put the "a" before "learning." This sentece - "Very basic part of a language is their alphabet and Japanese has two main alphabets" would sound better like this, "The basic part of any language is their alphabet. Japanese has two main alphabets" and then continue just as you had. Lastly hiragana is not spelled "ひりがな"...that would be "Hirigana." Hiragana is like this "ひらがな." :) I hope that helps!