SITE
|
Welcome to lesson 1!Although traditional Japanese is written top to bottom, left to right, some newer publications are written right to left. Anyhow on to lesson 1 - Hirigana. The two basic alphabets of Japanese, hirigana and katakana, are usually taught in "rows". What do we mean when we say "rows"? Read on and you'll find out. The japanese alphabet is composed of vowels and consonant-vowels. The first "row" in hirigana is:
These letters are pronounced as follows: 'a' as in 'a'dult or 'a'bout 'i' as in 'ea'gle or 'ea't 'u' as in s'ui't or s'ou'p 'e' as in 'a'ble or 'a'te 'o' as in 'o'k or 'oa't Did you notice that the order of the vowels is not in the same order as in the English alphabet? Sure you did. The reason for this order is this is the way it is taught to all learners of Japanese. Are you ready for the second row? Here we go!
These letters are pronouced as follows: 'ka' as in 'ca'r 'ki' as in 'key' 'ku' as in 'coo'l 'ke' as in 'ca'ke 'ko' as in 'co'la Aren't you getting hungry from all these food words? Too bad! I like using food words. On to the next row!
These letters are pronouced as follows: 'sa' as in 'sa'w 'shi' as in 'she' 'su' as in 'Sue' or 'sui't 'se' as in 'se't or 'se'nt 'so' as in 'so'da You may see し written as 'si' because this is another romanization system. Both ways are correct. Have you noticed anything similar between the pronouciations yet? Yes, maybe, what are you talking about? If you are in the last group you might want to go back and actually read the stuff at the beginning. If you are in one of the other groups let's see if your answer is correct: The similarities between all the examples is that the vowel sounds in the end did not change. You guessed correct? Great! Thus, a, ka, and sa all end in 'a' as in 'a'dult. You may be asking "Does this continue?", the short answer, YES. Onward to the next row!
Now, you are yelling at me, calling me a liar because of the second and third letters. But I didn't lie. I never said anything about the consanant parts only the vowel parts and those didn't change. So why the difference? Well, in the alternate romanji system there is no change so ち is ti and つ is tu, however look at the pronounciation below: 'ta' as in 'ta'lk or 'tau'ght 'chi' as in 'chee'k or 'chea'p 'tsu' as in 'sue' but with a small, short 't' before sue 'te' as in 'ta'ke 'to' as in 'toe' So, using chi and tsu are actually colser to the actual pronounciations than using ti and tu. The difference between つ and す is very small. An easy way to tell them apart is by your lips. When you say す your lips come together and it looks like the cartoon version of kissing, but when you say つ your lips don't really move. Next row is 'na'
Prononciation: 'na' as in 'nau'ghty 'ni' as in 'knee' 'nu' as in 'nu'ke or ca'noe' 'ne' as in 'nay' 'no' as in 'no' Next we have the 'ha' row
Not again! What is that 'fu' doing in there? Sorry, no answer for you this time. Pronounciations: 'ha' as in 'ho'cky 'hi' as in 'hea't 'fu' as in 'foo't 'he' as in 'hey' 'ho' as in 'ho'ld Next row 'ma'
Pronounciations: 'ma' as in 'ma'ma 'mi' as in 'me' 'mu' as in 'moo' 'me' as in 'ma'ke 'mo' as in 'mo'pe Is it getting easier to pronounce these letters? Yes? Good. Next row is 'ya'
What happended to yi and ye? Easy, they ran away from me. Just kidding. Actually in old Japanese there used to be a yi and a ye, however, over time those two letters have been phased out. Now we are just left with や,ゆ,and よ. Next is the 'ra' row:
This is the hardest row for english speakers to pronounce becasue there is a slight roll with the r's. Thus the pronouciations are not like 'rea'd or 'wro'te, where our lips come together in the front like the 'su' from before. Instead our lips stay where they are like the 'tsu' from before. If this is difficult, don't worry, many English speakers have this problem. I don't know if this helps but the r's in Japanese are closely related to the l's in English. This is why sometimes the letters switch in translation. Since the pronounciation is difficult, I recomend watching various japanese shows, including anime in japanese, just to see how they pronouce these letters, even listening to music helps. Because of all this difficulty, I am skipping the pronounciations for the 'ra' row. The next row is the 'wa' row:
Yes there are only 2 letters in this row. No, I don't know if this is the same thing that happened to the 'ya' row, but I would suspect so. The second letter を is used as a particle in modern writings. A particle is similar to our words "to, in , at" etc. In this case the word previous to this letter is treated as the direct object of the verb. For example, remember this sentence on the first page: Jill threw the ball and jiru wa boru wo nagemashita. If we fill in the proper hirigana for the Japanese sentence it would look like this: jiru は boru を なげました. Wait a minute. You don't understand why I wrote は in the hirigana sentence but I said wa in the romanji? Short answer is it is a particle too and as such the は is read as wa and not ha. See chapter 3 for more details. Pronounciations: 'wa' as in 'wa'ter or 'wa'tch 'wo' as in お , sometimes with a slight 'w' infront of it. Finally, we have 'n' or ん. Say the English letter 'N' and notice how you mouth is at the end. Now start in that position and try to say 'N'. You have just pronounced ん. You have done it! This is the end of the basics of hirigana. Once you know these there are only a few more things to know before you master hirigana. Ok, fine. I'll tell you the advanced stuff.
Notice that we only used certain letter combinations. If you look at the chart below I will try to explain.
This is the hirigana chart. Notice that the only row that we used was the い row. Also each letter in the い row with the exception of い itself was paired with either や、ゆ、or よ. If you have been following the pronounciation guide then you know how each letter is supposed to start and end, but how do they sound together? To pronounce these letters we will follow the English romaji. First you pronouce the consonants in the letter. For example, in sha pronouce sh, then you follow up with an a. This will end up sounding like shi, except you used an 'a' instead of an 'i'. For something more exotic like nya or myo, you start with the consonant, n or m, then follow up with a ya or yo. What happens with your mouth is (taking nya as an example) your tongue starts off between your upper and lower jaw, slightly behind your teeth, next you open your mouth into a ya, ending with your jaw open and your tongue basically on the bottom of your mouth. You can use this same technique for all the letters. There is one thing left to address. In Japanese we have someting called a ten-ten. It is the double-quote like thing on the shi - じ. This changes the pronounciation of the character. However only four rows can be affected by the ten-ten, か、さ、た、and は. Although the は row can also have a small circle instead of a ten-ten which also alters the pronounciation. The pronounciations are as follows:
If you have come this far then you are now a master of hirigana. That just leaves katakana and Kanji. If you are ready on to lesson 2. Back to the main Japanese page |