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Hiragana Lesson Part 1

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Hiragana Lesson - Part 1

I'll let wikipedia tell you what Hiragana is:

"Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな or ヒラガナ) is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet (rōmaji). Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora. Each kana is either a vowel such as "a" (あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "ka" (か); or "n" (ん), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English m, n, or ng ([ŋ]), or like the nasal vowels of French.

Hiragana is used to write native words for which there are no kanji, including particles such as から kara "from", and suffixes such as さん ~san "Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms." Likewise, hiragana is used in words for which the kanji form is obscure, not known to the writer or readers, or too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, as, for example, be-ma-shi-ta (べました) in tabemashita (食べました?, "ate"), are written in hiragana, often following a verb or adjective root (here 食) that is written in kanji. Hiragana is also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called furigana. The article Japanese writing system discusses in detail how the various systems of writing are used."



Now that that's out of the way.

Each hiragana symbol represents a sound in the Japanese language.

We all know the Japanese word, Kawaii.
This word is broken up into 4 sounds. Ka-Wa-I-I
So let's put this into hiragana: かわいい

NOTE
は: This is pronounced as 'wa' when used as a particle.
を: This is always pronounced 'o', not 'wo'.
へ: This is pronounced 'e' when using as a particle
R-sounds: When pronouncing ra, ri, ru, re, or ro, it is pronounced as if you were rolling your tongue.



HOMEWORK.
Put these japanese words into hiragana. (if you don't own a computer that has japanese characters on it, then do it on a piece of paper and post it on dA, or photobucket or something like that). :D

Konnichiwa (Hello, or Good Afternoon)
Sakana (Fish)
Neko (Cat)
Inu (Dog)
Tori (Bird)



FAQ
If anyone asks any questions, the question and answer will go here.

Next Lesson: Hiragana Lesson Part 2
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PacificGreen's avatar
I just love hiragana.