GRAMMER

Hiragana

Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic script. It represents every sound in the Japanese language. Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in Hiragana. However, because Japanese is written with no spaces, this will create nearly indecipherable text. Here is a table of Hiragana and similar-sounding English consonant-vowel pronunciations. It is read up to down and right to left, which is how most Japanese books are written. In Japanese, writing the strokes in the correct order and direction is important, especially for Kanji. Because handwritten letters look slightly different from typed letters (just like how 'a' looks totally different when typed), you will want to use a resource that uses handwritten style fonts to show you how to write the characters (see below for links). I must also stress the importance of correctly learning how to pronounce each sound. Since every word in Japanese is composed of these sounds, learning an incorrect pronunciation for a letter can severely damage the very foundation on which your pronunciation lies.

• The Small [や],[ゆ]and [よ]

You can also combine a consonant with a / ya / yu / yo / sound by attaching a small [や],[ゆ] or よ] to the / i / vowel character of each consonant.

• The Small [つ]

A small [つ]is inserted between two characters to carry the consonant sound of the second character to the end of the first. For example, if you inserted a small 「つ」between 「び」and 「く」to make 「びっく」, the / k / consonant sound is carried back to the end of the first character to produce "bikku". Similarly, 「はっぱ」becomes "happa", 「ろっく」becomes "rokku" and so on and so forth.

Examples

1. ざっし(zas-shi) - magazine

2. カップ(kap-pu) - cup

• The Long Vowel Sound

Whew! You're almost done. In this last portion, we will go over the long vowel sound which is simply extending the duration of a vowel sound. You can extend the vowel sound of a character  by adding either [あ],[い],or [う]depending on the vowel in accordance to the following chart.

Examples

1. がくせい(ga-ku-se) - student

2. せんせい(sen-se) - teacher

3. きょう(kyo) - today

4. おはよう(o-ha-yo) - good morning

5. おかあさん(o-ka-san) - mother

Katakana

As mentioned before, Katakana is mainly used for words imported from foreign languages. It can also be used to emphasize certain words similar to the function of italics. For a more complete list of usages, refer to the Wikipedia entry on katakana.

• The Long Vowel Sound

Long vowels have been radically simplified in Katakana. Instead of having to muck around thinking about vowel sounds, all long vowel sounds are denoted by a simple dash like

Examples

1. ツアー(tsu-a) - tour

2. メール(me-ru) - email

• The Small [ア、イ、ウ、エ、オ]

      Due to the limitations of the sound set in Hiragana, some new combinations have been devised over the years to account for sounds that were not originally in Japanese. Most notable is the lack of the / ti / di / and / tu / du / sounds (because of the / chi / tsu / sounds), and the lack of the / f / consonant sound except for 「ふ」. The / sh / j / ch / consonants are also missing for the / e / vowel sound. The decision to resolve these deficiencies was to add small versions of the five vowel sounds. This has also been done for the / w / consonant sound to replace the obsolete characters. In addition, the convention of using the little double slashes on the「ウ」vowel (ヴ) with the small「ア、イ、エ、オ」to designate the / v / consonant has also been established but it's not often used probably due to the fact that Japanese people still have difficulty pronouncing / v /. For instance, while you may guess that "volume" would be pronounced with a / v / sound, the Japanese have opted for the easier to pronounce "bolume" (ボリューム). In the same way, vodka is written as "wokka" (ウォッカ) and not「ヴォッカ」. You can write "violin" as either「バイオリン」or 「ヴァイオリン」. It really doesn't matter however because almost all Japanese people will pronounce it with a / b / sound anyway. The following table shows the added sounds that were lacking with a highlight. Other sounds that already existed are reused as appropriate

HIRAGANA

KATAKANA