Kana 1-2 Hiragana Part 1

1-2 Hiragana Part 1

What is hiragana? Hiragana is one of the two Japanese phonetic alphabets (the other being katakana). It represents every sound in the Japanese language.

There are 46 hiragana symbols in Japanese, each with a particular sound but no independent meaning. Here’s a hiragana chart on JapaneseUp.

1. Click on the link and read the characters in the table from left to right.  
2. To hear the pronunciation, hover your mouse over the characters and you will hear the audio.
3. To remember the order of the characters with vowels in the table, you can use the following memory aid “Kana Signs, Take Note How Much You Read and Write them.”
4. The first letter of each of the words corresponds to the letters in the hiragana alpahabet, e.g. K S T N H M Y R W.
5. Then, it is simply a matter of pairing the letters from the memory aid with each of the characters in ‘a i u e o’ and you will have remembered all of the basic characters.
6. So, start with the vowels, combine the letters and vowels and end with the character ‘n’ and there you have it.
7. You can also check how the hiragana strokes are written.  

1-2-1 Hiragana あ Row

The first thing to do is to learn the characters ‘a’ ‘i’ ‘u’ ‘e’ and ‘o’ as these are the building blocks for many of the other characters.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters. 

あ a

い i

う u

え e

お o

1-2-2 Hiragana か Row

Once you have mastered ‘a’ to ‘o’ you can then go on to learn ‘ka’ to ‘ko’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

か ka

き ki

く ku

け ke

こ ko

1-2-3 Hiragana さ Row

Next, please learn the characters ‘sa’ to ‘so’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

さ sa

し shi

す su

せ se

そ so

1-2-4 Hiragana た Row

Now, please learn the characters ‘ta’ to ‘to’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

た ta

ち chi

つ tsu

て te

と to

1-2-5 Hiragana な Row

For this lesson, please learn the characters ‘na’ to ‘no’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

な na

に ni

ぬ nu

ね ne

の no

1-2-6 Hiragana は Row

Next, please learn the characters ‘ha’ to ‘ho’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

は ha

ひ hi

ふ fu

へ he

ほ ho

1-2-7 Hiragana ま Row

Now, please learn the characters ‘ma’ to ‘mo’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

ま ma

み mi

む mu

め me

も mo

1-2-8 Hiragana や Row

For this lesson, please learn the characters ‘ya’ to ‘yo’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

や ya

ゆ yu

よ yo

1-2-9 Hiragana ら Row

Next, please learn the characters ‘ra’ to ‘ro’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

ら ra

り ri

る ru

れ re

ろ ro

1-2-10 Hiragana わ Row

Congrats, you are now on the final stretch of the hiragana table! Please learn the characters ‘wa’ to ‘n’.

Take a piece of paper and pen, write out everything yourself to master the stroke order and memorize the hiragana characters.

わ wa

を wo

ん n

1-2-11 Hiragana Quiz

Are you sure you’ve memorized all 46 hiragana characters correctly? 

Play this hiragana game to test your memory

This game has no time limit and you can even opt to show the character strokes.