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HIRAGANA PART 1

Congratulations! You are beginning a wonderful journey in language and culture. If you have never studied Japanese before, or you have some experience but don't know how to read hiragana, this page is for you. There are also a host of books and other pages on the Internet that you can use to help you too. With a little sweat and effort, you should be able to master hiragana in a few short weeks!

Today's lesson will teach you the vowel sounds in Japanese.  By learning these you will have mastered the essentials that will enable you to begin reading Japanese.  

Basically, like Spanish, there are 5 vowel sounds.  a, i, u, e, o.  

あ - a    - as in fAther, Ah
い - i    - as in fEEt
う - u    - as in fOOd
え - e    - as in eh? or hAte
お - o    - knOw  

These are the first 5 letters in the Hiragana alphabet.  Write them out 10 times a day and soon you will get it.  To aid memorization, make silly associations to go with them. You can use the following or you can make your own!

あ - a    - it looks like a cross with a sideways #9.  "Ah... number 9"
い - i    - It looks like two arms -- It will get me... EEk!!
う - u    - It looks like a nose and an open mouth.  "fOOd
え - e    - It looks like a person shooting a gun.  "I hAte guns!"
お - o    - It looks like 'あ - a' but "Oh! it's different.  

STOP!!!

Did you write the above hiragana 10 times? Did you sound them out as well? Well, do it again! And then take the following test & Javascript quiz...

TEST
How do you read these Hiragana characters?

あい     ____________    This means love
あおい ____________    This means blue
いう    _____________   This means to say, speak
え       _____________    This means a picture or drawing
いいえ _____________ This means no.
いえ    ______________ This means house.
おい    ______________ This means 'hey' or 'listen' or 'come here' (kind of rude)
いい ______________ This means 'good'

Click here to check your answers

NOW TAKE A QUIZ ON THE HIRAGANA YOU HAVE LEARNED!
There are 8 questions. Gambatte!

INSTRUCTIONS: I will test your knowledge by giving you a Hiragana in the left box.
Type the sounds in roman characters in the box on the right and press Tab to submit your answer.
Nihongo-san will tell you if you were right or wrong.
Use the Tab key or the Continue button to continue. USE ONLY LOWERCASE --> like this


is...

Nihongo-san says:

Note: This fantastic quiz was originally created by Kerri R. Schiller...Homepage
URL: http://www.oocities.org/SiliconValley/7116/jv_quiz.html

Perhaps you can recognize these 5 in just one day of practice.  

　

　

ANSWERS:

　

あい     ai This means love
あおい  aoi This means blue
いう    iu This means to say, speak
え       e   This means a picture or drawing
いいえ  iie This means no.
いえ    ie This means house.
おい    oi  This means 'hey' or 'listen' or 'come here' (kind of rude)
いい ii This means 'good'

　

Click here to take the Quiz