Hiragana - Part 1

The first content you'll learn with Japanly is Hiragana.

Introduction

The Japanese language is composed by three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. We'll talk about each of those, starting from hiragana.

Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary mainly used for (Wikipedia):

• Words' suffixes, like inflecting verbs and adjectives
• Japanese particles
• Japanese words
• Furigana (reading aid for kanji)

We'll see each of those use cases in more detail in the future, but the very first step for learning Japanese with Japanly is memorizing all the Hiragana.

It's important to notice that hiragana doesn't have meaning by itself like Kanji, but it represents sounds.

Groups of hiragana

The first group of hiragana

The first group of hiragana you need to learn is (you can click on the icon to play the sound of each hiragana):

• あ (pronounce: A)
• い (pronounce: I)
• う (pronounce: U)
• え (pronounce: E)
• お (pronounce: O)

It's beneficial to practice writing hiragana, not only because it aids in memorizing them but also because practicing the act of writing Japanese characters is crucial. This is particularly true for kanji, which have many strokes, but even with kana, such as hiragana, it's important to get accustomed to their distinct shapes, especially since they are vastly different from the letters in the alphabet.

To help you memorize kanas, we'll provide flashcard exercises. To start, click on the button below to go to the first flashcard exercise.