Rules in Writing Hiragana and Katakana
Rules in Writing Hiragana and Katakana
Rules in Writing Hiragana and Katakana
Introduction to
the Japanese
Reading and
Writing System
INTRODUCTION TO THE JAPANESE READING AND WRITING SYSTEM
There are 4 different letters or characters in Japanese: KANJI, HIRAGANA, KATAKANA and ROMAJI.
KANJI
Kanji (Chinese characters) are letters introduce from China which is used for writing nouns and stem of a
verb and adjectives. It expresses not only sound but also meaning through pictures.
HIRAGANA
Hiragana are Japanese characters which created from curve of Kanji and modify the reading of particular
Kanji. Hiragana is a soft letter made of lines.
KATAKANA
Katakana are other Japanese letters created by extracting a part of a Kanji character which is used for
foreign languages or words like name of persons, cities, and countries to become Japanized. It is also
used for telegraph text. Katakana is a hard letter made of straight lines.
ROMAJI
Romaji (Roman charaters) have recently been used for name of stations and on advertising words. It is
intended for foreign visitors of Japan. It is rarely used in regular sentence of Japanese except as symbol
or marks.
Each Kanji has a meaning but Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic symbols and they themselves have no
meaning. They are only symbol of sounds.
木 き ki tree 火 ひ hi fire
Hiragana and Katakana were made up from certain Kanji in order to represent Japanese syllabary.
Hiragana and Katakana were formed by simplifying the whole shape of certain Kanji and Katakana were
formed from a single part of Kanji.
Here is an example with combined letters of Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana and Romaji.
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RULES IN WRITING HIRAGANA
1. Long Vowels
A long vowel is pronounced twice as long as the ordinary vowels あ、い、う、え、お. If you count
the length of the vowel あ as one, the length of the long vowel ああ is counted as 2 syllabes.
Example:
2. Double Consonants
Certain consonant are doubled when preceded by small っ (tsu) and form as one syllable.
Example:
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3. Pronunciation of ん
ん never appears at the beginning of a word. It pronounced differently depending on the sound
that comes after it.
Example:
hantai はんたいopposite
undo うんどう sports / exercise
Example:
Example:
Example:
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biyoin びよういん parlor : byoin びょういん hospital
ocha おちゃ tea
gyunyu ぎゅうにゅう cow’s milk
bucho ぶちょう Department Head
ryoko りょこう travel
The difference between じ and ぢ、す and づ is not a matter of pronunciation but the usage. じ
Example:
kaji かじ fire
suzushi すずしい cool
tsuduku つづく to continue
Example:
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Tegami o kakimasu.
初級日本語1
mania マニア
camera カメラ
coin コイン
2. Words containing 2 or more consonant sounds in successions (-cc) are pronounced after each
consonant sound.
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mask マスク masuku
post ポスト posuto
milk ミルク miruku
c. “final –te” and “final –de” are handled in the same way as “-t” and “-d”, becoming “to”
and “do”
d. When the original word ends in “c, b, f, k, l, m, p or s” followed by silent “e”, the
consonant sound is followed by “u” in Japanese.
3. All long vowels are indicated by using dash (-) in writing horizontally. This dash indicates that
the preceding vowel is given a duration of 2 moras. When writing vertically, they are indicated
with a vertical line |.
car カー ka-
curtain カーテン ka-ten
lover ラバー raba-
form フォーム fo-mu
girl ガール ga-ru
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record レコード reko-do
report レポート repo-to
b. Final ‘-or” is expressed with a long –a- sound, not a long –o- sound.
record レ supermarket ス
コ |
| パ
ド |
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4. The same procedure with that of Hiragana, double consonant is indicated by small ッ (tsu). Small
ッ (tsu) is used by the consonant if it is pronounced as the emphasis in a word.
a. Words which are spelled with 2 vowels in a row but are rendered in Japanese with a double
consonant sound rather than with a lengthened vowel sound.
Philippine フィリピン
party パーテイー
weight ウェイト
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** Additional syllables for foreign words
FA ファ TI テイ WI ウイ
FI フィ TU トウ WE ウエ
FE フェ WO ウオ
FO フォ DI デイ
DU トウ KWA クア
VA ヴァ GWA グア
VI ヴィ SHE シェ KWO クオ
VU ヴ JE ジェ
VE ヴェ DYU デユ CHE チェ
VO ヴォ YE イエ
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