#hiragana lesson

[nihongo-lets-go]

Lesson　１, Pt. 1　：仮名［かな］

『　Scroll to the bottom for a glossary and resource links！ 』

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A brief summation of Kana 仮名:

Almost every language in human history has a written form. Romance languages and Germanic languages have the Roman alphabet. Ukrainian, Belarusian, Kazakh, and Russian have the Cyrillic alphabet. Korean has 한글. Japanese is, of course, no exception to this.

仮名［かな］are the syllabaries used for the Japanese written language. Each kanji, hiragana, and katakana character represents a word or sound in Japanese. Although each 仮名 has a different purpose, when combined they make up the whole of written Japanese, and are a must-know for everyday life, especially if your goal is to live in , work in, or visit Japan.

From reading menus, to shopping, to navigating transportation, to reading housing and apartment contracts, it is essential to learn the written language in order to fully grasp Japanese as a whole. (Side note: 仮名 can refer to solely hiragana and katakana.)

As stated before, the whole of the Japanese writing system is a combination of two kinds of 仮名:

～ Kanji (lit. “Han characters”), derived from written Chinese

～Hiragana and Katakana (the syllabic kana)

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KANJI

漢字 ［かんじ］ ー The original 仮名, or 真仮名 [まがな］(lit. “true kana”).

汉字 [hànzì] (Chinese characters) that are used to phonetically transcribe Japanese. The most prominent is 万葉仮名［まにょうがな］, from which hiragana and katakana are derived. Although certain 漢字 retain their meaning in 汉字, many more are used in a purely phonetic context, and thus the original meaning does not always hold. (Although, you'll have a great head-start if you're learning to read Mandarin!)

There tens of thousands of 漢字 used today, but the minimum number that learners are encouraged to remember is 2000-2200 (I would actually recommend learning closer to 3000).

『　Six 漢字, and their meanings. Only 1994 more to go!　』

Because the amount to be learned is so extensive, it's often easier to become comfortable reading and writing in hiragana [平仮名] and katakana [片仮名] before moving onto tackling 漢字 en masse. Although, it never hurts to learn a few in the beginning, especially those written for commonly used words!

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HIRAGANA

平仮名［ひらがな］ー The writing system used for native Japanese. It is used to write 送り仮名［おくりがな］, which are kana suffixes following a kanji root (e.g. to inflect nouns and verbs); to write particles; written for emphasis, and for misc. native words with no kanji, or with kanji that is too obscure or formal for writing.

平仮名 is also used to write 振り仮名［ふりがな］, also known as 読み仮名［よみがな］, and rubi ［ルビ ］. 振り仮名 is written above 漢字 to indicate proper pronunciation. Books aimed at children often include 振り仮名 .

平仮名 can be broken up into three sub-categories:

~Chart 1 includes all of the base 平仮名, including the a, i , u, e, o vowels ［あ、い、う、え、お］and the n/ng［ん］consonant.

~Chart 2 includes the dakuten and handakuten characters. Dakuten [ ﾞ] and handakuten [ ﾟ ] are marks that modify the sound of the 平仮名 they are placed after. For example: a dakuten after the character ha [は], changes the sound to ba [ば]. Adding a handakuten after は changes the sound to pa [ぱ].

~Chart 3 is a combination chart that includes 平仮名 , dakuten, handakuten, and 促音 [そくおん] . Sokuon [促音], known more casually as chiisai tsu/chiisai kana [小さいつ | 小さいかな] or chiisana tsu [小さなつ] , are the small 平仮名 that aid in altering the character's sound. For example: take は, ば, and ぱ, and add a smaller version the character ya [や] after them. By doing this, や becomes the sokuon , [ゃ］, turning は, ば, and ぱ into hya［ひゃ］, bya [びゃ] , and pya [ぴゃ] .

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KATAKANA

片仮名［カタカナ］ ー　This writing system has many uses, primarily for foreign loan words ( 外来語［がいらいご］) and onomanopoeia. It is also used for technical and scientific terms; for the names of plants, animals, and minerals, and for Japanese companies.

As with 平仮名, 片仮名 is also used for word emphasis.

Other than the differences in appearances, 片仮名 are functionally identical to 平仮名. There are the base characters, the dakuten/handakuten characters, and the combination characters, all which produce the different sounds of Japanese.

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The Japanese writing system can seem overwhelming at first, especially if your native tongue is part of a completely different linguistic family. Just remember that learning anything new takes time. Practice makes for a practiced person!

To round out this lesson, included below is a glossary of all the words mentioned. If you have any questions, feel free to use that 'Ask Me Anything!' button.

Happy learning!

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LESSON 1 VOCABULARY LIST:

仮名 ー　Kana［かな] , the name for the Japanese writing system. Kana can also refer to only hiragana and katakana.

真仮名 ー Magana [まがな］literally translates into “true kana”. Another term for kanji.

漢字 ー Kanji［かんじ］, the character system based off of the Chinese written characters 汉字 [hànzì］. Kanji is also known as man'yōgana ( まにょうがな [万葉仮名 ] ), the magana writing system that hiragana and katakana descended from.

平仮名 ー Hiragana［ひらがな］, the writing system used for native Japanese.

送り仮名 ー Okurigana［おくりがな］, hiragana suffixes following the kanji stems of written Japanese.

振り仮名 ー Furigana［ふりがな］is small hiragana that is written above kanji to indicate proper pronunciation. Furigana also known as yomigana ( 読み仮名［よみがな］), and rubi ［ルビ ］ .

片仮名 ー Katakana［カタカナ] is the writing system used for foreign loan words, the names of Japanese companies, and much more.

外来語 ー Gairaigo［がいらいご] is the term for foreign names and loan words--essentially any non-native Japanese words.

Dakuten [ ﾞ] and handakuten [ ﾟ ] ー written marks that alter the sound of the hiragana or katakana they are placed after.

小さいつ 、 小さいかな 、小さなつ ―　chiisai tsu, chiisai kana, and chiisana tsu are all terms used for small hiragana that, like dakuten and handakuten, alter a kana character's sound.

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

WIKIPEDIA:

Kana

Hiragana

Katakana

Furigana

Sokuon (chiisai tsu)

OTHER SITES:

Dakuten, Handakuten

Origins of Gairaigo

[ducktracy]

"posting this because i NEEEEEED this on my blog" is probably going to be the caption for 95% of the Shin-chan stuff i post BUT IT IS NO LESS TRUE BECAUSE OF IT. Masaaki Yuasa is quickly becoming one of my favorite animators and i want to have easy access to ogle at his work at any time. and i hope for you to do the same! so here's his animation for Ending 3 of the show from 1993

[nicole-the-hololynx]

i know hiragana now

[peistudies]

にくい - Difficult to, Hard to

Verb in noun form［ます］+ にくい Polite: Verb in noun form［ます］+ にくい + です

Like 易い (やすい), にくい is an い-Adjective that is regularly attached to the ます stem of verbs, communicating the difficulty of performing the verb that precedes it. In other words, the verb, aka whatever is difficult to do, will always come before にくい.

The nuance of にくい is that a task is difficult to do because of the required skill level or similar factors.

私には英語の「Literally」という単語がとても言いにくい。For me, the English word ‘literally’ is very hard to say. (Hard due to the individual's skill level)

アフリカには行きにくいです。It is hard to go to Africa.

This is different from づらい, which focuses more on a task that is difficult due to being unbearable/hard to endure for some other reason (such as emotional). For example:

お前には本当に言いづらいけど、お前のギターを壊した。ごめん。This is very difficult for me to say to you, but I broke your guitar. I'm sorry. (Hard because the speaker knows that telling the listener will cause a negative response)

[asherenjoysart]

I’m finally learning Japanese :3

こんにちは!

[blushy-blossom]

🌸My Edit🌸

Hiragana - う - u

[teapenguin]

This week for the first time I got into duolingo diamond league (woo hoo!) but I'm about to fall out of it in 4 min (boo hoo)

[citrijp]

sometimes i'm really glad that i love learning grammar and am really determined to learn JP bc this was a Time to get through

btw the full sentence is アリスは空っぽの瓶でも下へ落としては悪いと思った。

also hi i chose to stop doing daily posts bc holding myself to that while managing my illness and trying to be a person and doing my lessons and doing other things like D&D is hard but i will still post about my journey!!

anyway, about these notes: they aren't even that long but i needed to do that breakdown for myself lol

shoutout to my bestie ∅ i love zero pronouns bc i wish that was me i want no pronouns and to be Void

but jokes aside i don't always write them out like this but i needed to understand the sentence. i've since put parentheses in the translation where the zero pronouns would be

[morporkian-cryptid]

So, that's going well.

[knifecatanthology]

is it just me or did duolingo change their unit structures.

i was on the last lesson of japanese unit 3 which was like. country names, and katakana. and now i am apparently at the end of unit 1, which covers ordering food and describing people. the unit is fully gold, which supposedly means ive totally mastered the vocab for this unit, except that i hadnt gotten to the ordering food and describing people unit. i was on country names in katakana. so i am now basically at lesson 0.

why the fuck

it made sense for you to cover hiragana and katakana in the first couple units bc they get used in later units and people have to at least be able to read phonetically to understand pronunciation, why did you change that. this is a visual app. we cant learn the language if we can't fucking read it now can we.

also the targetted practice option in the review tab is gone? it is just more listening practice? there are now 2 seperate options for listening practice in the review tab. i want to be able to review vocabulary without listening to audio why did you do this

[daughterofsarenrae]

I cant go to sleep i have to do like 4 hours worth of duolingo for no apparent reason

[evelynquack]

Sometimes you get bored and scour through [insert preffered Japanese name website here] for a while and note down any names you like so when you go making anime or manga OCs you’ve already got a prepicked list of names with kanji you like.

[hybridzizi]

Okay these are cool resources that I will probably use but I do feel compelled to mention that the duolingo japanese course is teaching me kanji? Like maybe it should be teaching me more kanji or should have started the kanji earlier or something but there was definitely kanji in my lesson yesterday and I expect there will be more going forward.

it's poor form to air your petty grievances with someone when it comes out they did something actually bad. save that for companies, like when you learn duolingo removed kanji from its beginner's japanese courses as part of their collab with crunchy roll

[nexus-nebulae]

i wish duolingo would prioritise teaching me the alphabet of a language with a different script that I'm not familiar with bc every time it tries to automatically take me to a new lesson it goes straight to the units that make you make sentences when i don't even know how to read yet

[blushy-blossom]

🌸My Edit🌸

Hiragana - い - i

[raviniaraven]

My language milestones always start with "If I ended up lost in this country, what would benefit me the most to know first?" It's usually:

-Excuse me/I'm sorry

-Do you speak English, I don't speak the language

-Where is the bathroom/bus stop/train

-I need help

-Info on currency and numbers

-Reading basic characters (kanji, hiragana, stuff like that)

My goal is always to get halfway fluent but I feel like this at least is the survival baseline of a language