Japanese Writing (continued)

III. Hirigana

Hiragana is a much smoother script, full of loops and curves.

There are 46 basic hiragana characters, just like in Katakana. All sounds in the Japanese language can be expressed with just hiragana.

Hiragana is used to write:

• Simple words, like "of" (meaning "belonging to", 's).
• Verb endings, like the past tense, like mima-su (I see) and mima-shita (I saw.)
• Short parts of words, like honorifics (polite words)

Hiragana is the first writing system taught to Japanese children, so low-level children's books are written exclusively (entirely) in hiragana. Even in more advanced level texts, difficult kanji (Chinese characters) will have the pronunciation written above in hiragana.

From Hiragana Writing Tutor

	A	I	U	E	O
Vowel Row	a (as in father)	ee (as in green)	u (as in blue)	e (as in red)	o (as in old)
K KA Row	kah	kee	ku	keh	ko
S SA Row	sah	see	sue	seh	so
T TA Row	tah	tee	too	teh	toe
N NA Row	nah	nee	new	neh	no
H HA Row	ha	hee	hoo	heh	ho
M MA Row	ma	mee	moo	meh	mo
Y YA Row	yah	.	you	.	yo
R RA Row	rah	ree	roo	reh	ro
W WA Row	wah	.	.	.	wo
	n

 
 
Learn How to Write Hiragana:

• Hiragana Writing Tutor with animation and a sound machine.
• Let's Learn Hiragana from "Japan Window -Kids". Click on a word and "sound machine" will teach you how to say it and see how to write it!
• See below: "Speaking Japanese" also has chart of the writing systems of Hiragana
• How to Write "Hira-gana" movies is a site for learning how to write hirakana (with a movie showing how to form each character)

IV. Romanji

Romanji means "Roman letters" - like we use in English. This is a very modern way of writing some Japanese words. Romanji is used to write words from English and to write Japanese for foreigners to understand.

There are many company names that you can read in Romanji - Sony, Toyota, Sanyo, Mitsubishi, etc. There are also some Japanese place names that are written in Romanji to help tourists: Tokyo, Kyoto, etc.

A Quiz: Answer with Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana, or Romanji Which writing system is used in children's books? Which writing system uses Chinese characters? Which writing system uses lots of loops and curves? Which writing system has angles and straighter lines? Which writing system uses Roman (English) letters? What is the system shown above right? What is the system shown below? What is this system? Sony What is this system?

Go to Page One: Introduction and Kanji

Go to Page Two: Katakana

You are here at Page Three: Hiragana and Romanji

Go to Page Four: Speaking Japanese