HIRAGANA LESSON TWO

In this lesson you will learn the Hiragana form of the sounds KA, KI, KU, KE, KO, GA, GI, GU, GE, GO. To see the stroke order, all you need to do is hover your mouse over the graphic of the character shown on the page. To hear how to pronounce the characters, click your mouse on any picture of the character group.

You will notice that two lines are added to the K* characters to give the corresponding G* character. These two lines are called (I don't remember), and they are used to represent the change in the vibrating of your throat when pronouncing the original. KA with these two lines is a harsher version of KA, giving GA.
To feel this yourself, hold your hand to the hollow of your throat and compare the feeling from when you say ka versus when you say ga. Try this also for sa and za, which you will learn about in a later lesson.

It is important to know that some characters in Hiragana are written one way, but look slightly different in their "typed" or "computer" form. KI/GI are the first you will see of this kind. For a comparison of all written style characters versus all "typed" ones, examine the typed versus written page from the hiragana lessons homepage.

KA/GA picture a crow flying over a cliff and saying "ka-ka"
KI/GI simply a key and a lock
KU/GU the beak of a "cuckoo" bird
KE/GE a "keg" of beer
KO/GO this looks like a "coin"
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