Japanese Hiragana & Katakana for Beginners. Timothy G. Stout

m as in man

      Several Japanese consonants, however, are not commonly found in English and require special attention. One is the Japanese “r.” In English “r” is pronounced by curling the tongue so the sides touch the upper teeth (not touching the tip of the tongue). In Japanese, “r” is pronounced by tapping the tongue against the ridge behind the upper teeth, as in “paddle” and “ladder,” sounding like a combination of “l” and “d”; it is not a rolling trill as in Spanish. “tsu” is pronounced as in “tsunami” and “cat’s whiskers.” “fu” is pronounced without touching the upper teeth and lower lip. It almost sounds like “who” and “hooting owl,” except the lips are more pursed and air escapes more quickly.

      The special consonant “y” as in “yarn” is paired with the vowels “a,” “u” and “o” to make the syllables “ya,” “yu” and “yo.” This consonant is special because Japanese uses it extensively in combination with all of the other consonants to form additional syllables, such as “kya,” “kyu” and “kyo.” In order to accommodate more foreign syllables, many more character combinations are used in katakana (see Section Five).

      Although katakana tries to represent gairaigo (“loan words”) as faithfully as possible, the words sound distinctly Japanese. In 1991 the Japanese government updated the official guidelines for writing gairaigo. The guidelines included 33 more combined characters for writing foreign words. These 33 combined characters are not the limit—the guidelines clearly state that other combinations can be made as needed. Still, all syllables must conform to the basics of Japanese phonology (see Section Two).

      How to Write Hiragana

      Hiragana is the first writing system that Japanese children learn. It is not uncommon for a four-year-old to be able to fluently read children’s books and the like because of hiragana’s simple one-to-one correspondence between characters and sounds. Hiragana can easily be used to write any word or phrase, and even adults will sometimes substitute hiragana for difficult or uncommon kanji characters.

      According to the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, it takes approximately 1,300 hours to acquire advanced Japanese proficiency, but much less time is required for basic proficiency. Hiragana is a great place to begin. The immediate benefits of learning hiragana include improving your pronunciation and gaining access to hundreds of dictionaries, textbooks, and other learning and enrichment materials written with hiragana. Plus, all of the writing skills of hiragana are transferable to learning katakana and kanji, making them easier to learn.

      There are various styles used to write hiragana, but this book only uses the most standard kyōkashotai or “schoolbook” style. Hiragana characters are composed of three types of strokes: “stops,” “jumps” and “brushes.” With a stop, the pencil must come to a stop before it is removed from the paper. Jumps are written by removing the pencil from the paper as it moves to the next stroke. With a brush, the pencil is slowly removed from the paper as the stroke is written, giving it a tapered, sweeping appearance. In the example below, the character “ke” as in “Kevin” is written with all three types of strokes. The first stroke is a jump, the second is a stop, and the third is a brush.

      Writing the correct stroke types in the correct order is important for forming balanced, legible characters. With practice you will get the hang of it. You can make your characters look more authentic by slightly tilting left-to-right strokes, as in stroke two in “ke” (see above), rather than writing them straight across. Character strokes are generally written from left to right and top to bottom. Try to center each character in an imaginary box, not too far to the left, right, top or bottom.

      Traditionally Japanese was written from top to bottom, progressing in columns from right to left across the page. Now it is also commonly written from left to write, as with English. All the hiragana in this book is written from left to right.

      How to Write Katakana

      Katakana characters also are composed of the same three types of strokes we discussed above: “stops,” “jumps” and “brushes.” In the following example, the character “o” as in “oak” is written with all three types of strokes. The first is a stop, the second a jump, and the third is a brush.

      Compare the hiragana and katakana characters below. Hiragana characters are curved and looping, but katakana characters are straight and angled. Katakana also has fewer “jumps” and more “stops” and “brushes.”

      Some hiragana and katakana characters look alike, like “ka” and “ki.” The picture mnemonics for these katakana characters are the same as the hiragana characters—another good reason you should master hiragana first.

      Writing the correct stroke type in the correct order is important for forming balanced, legible characters. With practice you will get the hang of it. You can make your characters look more authentic by slightly tilting left-to-right strokes, as in stroke one in “o” (see above), rather than writing them straight across. Character strokes are generally written from left to right and top to bottom. Try to center each character in the middle of an imaginary box, not too far to the top, bottom, left, or right.

      Writing Your Name in Japanese

      Most beginning learners enjoy katakana because it is relatively simple to learn, and it is immediately useful. You write your name and your friends’ names in katakana. You can guess many of the katakana words found in Japanese texts you read. Soon reading and writing katakana will become second nature, and all your hard work will begin to pay off.

      Try to find your name in the “Names in Katakana” lists provided on the

. Only one Japanese spelling is given for all of the names with the same pronunciation, such as Amy, Ami, Amie and Aimee. The names are listed under the most common spelling. If you don’t see your name in the list and your name is a nickname, try looking for the formal version (i.e., “Richard” instead of “Rick”). If you still can’t find your name, it may not be one of the most common. Never fear, you can ask your teacher or a Japanese friend for help. Any name can be written in Japanese. Practice writing your name in the spaces provided (don’t worry if you leave some boxes unused).

      Where Hiragana and Katakana Came From

      Although hiragana characters look like the picture mnemonics in this book, they did not originally come from pictures. Hiragana characters were developed based on simplified cursive-style kanji during the Heian Period (794-1185 AD). China, one of the great civilizations of the ancient world, had a huge influence on its Asian neighbors, including Japan. Kanji were first introduced to Japan around the 5th century AD.

      The Japanese upper classes made a serious study of Chinese language, religion and government, and along with adopting new perspectives and practices, they adopted thousands of words and the kanji used to write them. The earliest official documents were written in Chinese, and for a long time Chinese was considered the language of the educated. Japanese also used kanji, however, to write poetry and prose in Japanese. This was problematic since spoken Japanese and Chinese were very different,