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Lesson 1: Hiragana
The first step we will take on your journey through MangaLand will be to
learn a little about the Japanese writing system: we are obviously talking
about those inscriptions which many of you may have encountered. In
these few first lessons you will need to put forth a great effort in order to
learn the two syllabaries.
The syllabaries
The syllabaries are essential for the correct learning of the Japanese language. Most
Japanese textbooks use rmaji that is, the Romanized alphabet to teach the beginner. However, rmaji eventually becomes inadequate, as knowing only spoken Japanese
is the same as being illiterate. If you wish to learn Japanese at all levels and, especially,
if you wish to be able to read magazines or comic books, your study must include learning how to read and write the two Japanese syllabaries. This will be the first step towards
a sound learning of the language. You must get used to Japanese characters as soon as
possible, so we will start with the writing basics. In Japanese there is no such thing as an
alphabet as we know it. Instead, there are two syllabaries called hiragana and
katakana. A Japanese character usually equals a two-letter syllable in our language (that
is why they are called syllabaries.) Thus, the character is read ka. There is only one
exception: the sound n, the only consonant sound that can go on its own.
Both hiragana and katakana have 46 syllabic symbols, each equivalent to its corresponding symbol in the other syllabary in pronunciation but written differently. For
instance, the hiragana character and the katakana character are both read chi.
It may seem strange or unnecessary, but less so when you consider that we have a very
similar system: upper case and lower case letters. Try thinking on the purely formal
similitude between a and A, or between g and G. Do they look the same?
Japanese has kanji as well, ideograms taken from Chinese during the period from the
rd
3 century to the 6th century AD, which represent concepts rather than sounds. There
are many kanji (an estimated number of more than 50,000) but only 3,000 (more or
less) are usually and frequently used, out of which 1,945 are considered common use
(l.3) and must compulsorily be studied at school.
The subject in this first lesson is the hiragana syllabary, undoubtedly the most basic
and essential to learn the basis of the Japanese language.
16
Lesson 1
yo
ri
zo
m
th
b
re
fi
W
ar
(
Ja
q
kn
w
o
h
ra
le
st
Ja
w
ch
re
te
fo
in
1
On Japanese writing
to
ng
n
to
st
nse
y,
nds
as
an
nd
at
ne
sor
ry
al
he
re
or
e
ic
Before we get started, its worth knowing a few basic aspects of Japanese writing. As
you must know, Japanese can be written using the traditional style (vertically and from
right to left), but it can also be written the way we write, using the Western style (horizontally and from left to right).
Although newspapers and manga, for example, tend to use the traditional style, both
methods are generally used in Japan nowadays, perhaps with a slight predominance of
the Western style over the traditional. Therefore, it is essential to become familiar with
both.
Indeed, many books, magazines, comic books and printed material in general are
read backwards. Then, in Japanese books, the cover is placed where we would usually
find the back cover, and that is why they are read left to right, just the opposite of
Western books. If you think about it, this is not so odd; Arabic books, for that matter,
are opened the same way.
Japanese punctuation marks are also different. A period is written with a small circle
( ) and comas point upwards, the opposite from what we are used to ( ). In addition,
Japanese has opening ( ) and closing ( ) square brackets, which are equivalent to our
quotation marks. However, there are several other punctuation marks which we all
know and are exactly the same, such as question marks ( ), exclamation marks ( ), etc.
Hiragana
After this general introduction to Japanese writing, we will fully go into the subject
we are dealing with in this first lesson: the hiragana syllabary. Pay attention to the table
on the following page, because you will need to learn it very well: it is essential to learn
how to read and write hiragana fluently as soon as possible.
Bear in mind you must follow a particular stroke order to write each one of the characters (it may not seem so, but stroke order is very important.) At the end of this same
lesson you will find a writing guide for each of the basic hiragana characters, where each
stroke order is specified.
The hiragana syllabary is the most used of the two, because it is used to write strictly
Japanese words, unlike katakana, which is mainly used for words of foreign origin (as
we will see in l.2). Hiragana is used when a word cant be written in kanji, the kanji
character is not officially recognized as a kanji of common use, or if the writer doesnt
remember the corresponding kanji. Likewise, particles (l.16) and verb endings are written using the signs in this syllabary.
Hiragana is what Japanese children learn first when they study how to write; therefore, all childrens reading books are entirely written in this syllabary. Later, as children
increase their knowledge, katakana and kanji are introduced.
Hiragana
17
1
Complete list of hiragana characters
Pure sounds
ka
sa
ki
shi
Impure sounds
ku
ke
su
se
ko
so
ta
chi
tsu
te
to
na
ni
nu
ne
no
ga
za
da
ba
ha
hi
fu
he
mi
ya
ra
mu
me
yu
ri
ru
wa
gi
ji
ji
bi
gu
zu
zu
bu
ge
ze
de
be
mo
pi
pu
pe
kya
kyu
kyo
gya
gyu
gyo
sha
shu
sho
ja
ju
jo
go
zo
do
cha
chu
cho
nya
nyu
nyo
hya
hyu
hyo
bya
byu
byo
pya
pyu
pyo
mya
myu
myo
bo
ho
pa
ma
N
to
w
Diphthongs
po
ro
rya
ryu
ryo
(w)o
Syllabary description
There are 46 basic sounds, which you can see in the first column of the above syllabary. First learn these characters, because later on you will find it infinitely easier to
learn by heart the so-called impure or derivative sounds.
Note: You have probably noticed that there are two ji sounds ( and ) and two zu
sounds ( and .) These are, indeed, pronounced exactly the same way, but their
usage is different. For the time being, lets say that we will almost always use and ,
and hardly ever the other two.
18
Lesson 1
in
ya
to
re
ex
an
se
f
sh
sc
T
ra
Ja
yo
re
ylto
zu
eir
,
1
In the second column we see the list of impure sounds derived from other sounds.
Note that the ka ( ) syllable is the same as ga ( ), but ga has two small lines on the
top right-hand corner of the sign (the voicing or muffling mark); the same applies
when we go from the s line to the z one, from t to d, and from h to b.
Notice, too, how to obtain the p sounds we must only place a small circle (the
occlusive mark) on top of the characters in the h line. Ex. (ha)
(pa).
In the third column, we finally find the diphthongs, combinations of the characters
in the i column ( ki, shi, chi, ni, hi, mi) with those in the y line (
ya, yu, yo), the later ones written in a smaller size. These combinations are used
to represent more complex sounds, such as
cha,
hyo or
gyu.
There is no l sound in Japanese. So, whenever we need to write or pronounce a foreign word with the letter l in it, we will have to replace it with a soft r. Lance, for
example, would be pronounced Ransu. No, this is not wrong, nor have you misread
anything. Because of this pronunciation difficulty, many Japanese seem to find themselves misunderstood when they travel abroad. Words such as right and light, or
fry and fly, tend to sound the same, or even worse, please sit may become please
shit! This can cause som startling or awkward conversations.
Dont worry about it for the moment, because we will never use hiragana to transcribe our names into Japanese. (We will see more about this in lessons 2 and 8.)
Pronunciation
Japanese is pronounced with very few sounds, all of them very simple and basic.
Thus, it can pose a problem for English speakers because sounds in our language are
rather complicated or twisted. Lets have a look at the pronunciation of the
Japanese vowels:
The a as in father.
The i as in machine.
The u as in recuperate.
The e as in set.
The o as in cooperate.
The g is always pronounced as in get and never as in gentle.
The r is always in pronounced in the Spanish fashion (not the rolling trill, dont
worry). Its somewhat between the l and the r and can be the most difficult sound
to get right. Examples in Spanish: Sonora, Merida.
The ch as in church.
The tsu as the tz-u part of Ritz Uruguay
Hiragana
19
Manga-examples
We are now going to see some examples of hiragana usage. In this course
we will always see examples inspired by real Japanese manga to illustrate
what has been explained in the theory pages. As they say, a mangaexample is worth a thousand words.
H
ex
O
sc
an
w
H
ta
Studio Ksen
a) Yawn
Katsuko:
fuwaa...
Lesson 1
je
bo
th
et
k
nd
to
ny
he
to
ry
u-
he
ill
is
of
b) Laughing
Guillermo March
se
te
a-
Mifu:
Tatsu:
ahahahahahahahahahahaha
hehehehehehehehehehehehe
Here we see Tatsu and Mifu the instant they meet. Their reaction is most curious: what
exactly do those giggles written in hiragana indicate?
Onomatopoeia for sounds produced by manga human characters (laughs, doubts,
screams...) are usually written in hiragana, unlike sounds caused by human acts, things
and animals (barks, explosions, blows...), which are usually written in katakana, as we
will see in lesson 2.
However, dont take this as an inflexible rule; depending on the author and his or her
taste, the use of the syllabaries in manga can vary greatly.
21
Tar:
washi yori hansamu na no wa sugimoto akira dake da
I more handsome than sugimoto akira only be
...
waai arigat he he he...
wow! thanks he he he
22
Lesson 1
|
,
Hiragana
23
Exercises
he
we
How is manga usually written: horizontally and from left to right (Western
style) or vertically and from right to left
(traditional style)?
What do we use the hiragana syllabary
for?
us
ut
es
m
na
ng
ed
ic
me
ga
Strictly speaking, does the Japanese language use an alphabet? How many
Western letters is a hiragana sign usually equivalent to when transcribed?
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24
Lesson 1
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Hiragana
25