JAPANESE PRONUNCIATION
WITH HIRAGANA

Teaching reading IS rocket science - Louisa Moats

There are people who learn hiragana, and then there are people who don’t learn hiragana. Here are some people who didn’t learn hiragana: Boba Fett. Marie Antoinette. All of Bernie Madoff’s Clients. All Philadelphia Sports Teams. Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. You don’t want to be any of these people. Learn Hiragana now and get it over with.

The first thing we’re going to start (I say “start” because we’ll be practicing our hiragana over the next couple of chapters before you feel really good about it) is hiragana. First, we’ll talk about some time-saving tips that will help you learn more quickly and effectively (you should use these tips with everything you learn from here on out, if possible), then we’ll go over what you need to learn along with a suggested schedule of learning. I’ll provide all the materials you’ll need to study, and offer a few other resources outside of TextFugu you can use as well. The goal is to learn hiragana as fast and as well as possible. Hiragana is really boring, but it’s also really important. This is one of the few chapters that is truly “difficult,” but once you get through it you’ll have surpassed at least 90% of people who ever thought “I’m going to learn Japanese.”

CREATING OUR ”Getting Things Done Japanese To-Do List”

Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined – David Allen

The first thing you need to do before you start studying some “actual” Japanese is to create a “getting things done” list. This can be scraps of paper or it can be something more complicated like the Remember The Milk task management system. To be honest, it doesn’t matter too much. My preference is to keep things simple, so I’d personally recommend a small notebook to write down your next actionable tasks down.

• Actionable Task: This is something you can take physical action upon. For example, you wouldn’t write down “study kanji” or “study hiragana” as one of your tasks. These are too broad and too general to be acted upon. Many times, the reason we don’t take action is because we don’t really know what to do. This can be prevented with just a couple minutes of planning before you start. Most people, surprisingly, haven’t figured this out. When you come up with ambiguous to-dos, it causes you to freeze, and creates “open-loops” in your mind. When you have open loops, it takes away from your focus, and makes it difficult to get things done. For example, if you wanted to write down a good actionable task (unlike the ones listed above) you might want to write down “be able to read and write あ, い, う, え, and お consistently in any order.” This is a specific thing you can learn, and just by knowing what it is you need to memorize, as well as what you need to be able to do, you are opening the way to actually doing it.

Another thing we want to do is to under promise and over deliver. Although this sounds strange, here’s an explanation below:

• Short-Term Goals: When coming up with a list of short-term goals, it is important to under promise and over deliver. This might sound like I’m saying you should always do the bare minimum, or shoot for mediocre, but this is hardly what I want at all. By under promising (i.e. coming up with realistic, short-term goals) you will feel 1. better from completing your short-term goals and 2. get a lot more done in the long-run. If and when you finish up your short-term goals list, you should just write up and plan a new list for yourself. This will give you a very good accomplished feeling, which will keep you feeling motivated, and you’ll get a lot more done in the long term. This will also help you avoid burn-out, which is the most common symptom of someone who quits!

When coming up with goals, I’d recommend you go for more lists (but smaller lists) rather than few longer lists. It’s not so much about how long you study, it’s more about the consistency. For example, studying three times for one hour a piece is less effective than studying six times for thirty minutes a piece. Everyone reaches their plateau at some point during each practice session (usually between 30 and 90 minutes), which is why it’s better to study for a little bit, recharge, then come back excited and ready to go. This is another good reason to focus on creating shorter action lists instead of one long one.

The first short-term goal list you’ll create is one for Hiragana. There are 46 kana (where each hiragana character represents one mora) in the hiragana “alphabet,” and we will be learning all of them fairly well (and fairly quickly) within the next two chapters of this online textbook. It’s important to feel comfortable with hiragana as soon as possible so you can move on to kanji, which of course is a boat-load of fun.

HIRAGANA

Hiragana is the first step towards your Japanese education. It may sound like a lot for me to ask you to learn an entire alphabet so soon (especially one that has 46 “letters” in it), but it’s all for the best. Trust me! We’ll focus a lot on learning hiragana perfectly in as little time as possible. By learning hiragana well, you’re setting yourself up for better pronunciation and a better understanding of how the Japanese language works. Ask almost anyone who is learning Japanese. Learning hiragana early is the absolute best route to take.

But how do you learn it?

There are plenty of ways to go about it, and I can’t say one way is right and another is wrong, but I’m going to provide you with what I think is the most effective method. We will be using other websites, as well as worksheets made just for TextFugu, to learn hiragana. We’ll focus first on pronunciation, and then move on to reading and writing.

HIRAGANA PRONUNCIATION

I have no idea what I’m singing, they give me the pronunciation – Melissa Rich

The first thing we’re going to do is take a look at the pronunciation of each kana. There are plenty of hiragana charts out there, all with similar layouts, but none of them do a great job in terms of pronunciation explanation. I’ve altered the hiragana chart that does the best job to make it even better. Download the hiragana chart here.

Let’s take a look at the first column (top right). We have あいうえお, written in romaji (under each kana) as “a, i, u, e, o.” If you pronounce these as you would normally in English, they won’t come out right. Now, before you really get started, remember this: the important thing is that you come to understand the pronunciation. That’s it. The next section is about reading and writing. Right now I want you to learn how to learn how the chart works, and then go through the videos to perfect your pronunciation to the absolute best of your ability. Learning to read and write isn’t important until the next section. Let’s take a look at the first five “letters” of hiragana.

• あ :: a :: “a” is pronounced like the “a” in “car.”
  

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• い :: i :: “i” is pronounced like “eeee,” or the “ey” sound in “key.” Think of it like you’re saying the letter “e” (not pronouncing it, but reading the letter).
  

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• う :: u :: “u” is pronounced “ooh,” like saying “ooh ahh” when fireworks are going off.
  

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• え :: e :: “e” is pronounced “eh” like the “e” in “egg” or “elephant”
  

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• お :: o :: “o” is pronounced “oh” like in “oh my gosh”
  

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These first five “letters” of the hiragana “alphabet” are really really important. Make sure you understand the pronunciation of each before moving on to the next section. Every kana (letter) in the hiragana alphabet (for the most part) works off of these sounds, so if you don’t get these five right, you’ll mess things up for yourself in the future. Take a look at this video and try to mimic these sounds. If you feel like you’ve plateaued, take a break and come back and try again. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s much better to have more consistency with your studies than it is to smash your head against the preverbal curb over and over when you’re getting nowhere. That will only make yourself frustrated and cause you to quit, and we don’t want that.

Now that you know how to pronounce the first five kana (a, i, u, e, o), let’s move on to the next column to see why these first five were so important. We’ll be looking at か、き、く、け、and こ. If you look at most of the columns, actually, you’ll notice that they all follow a very similar pattern (minus the exceptions listed below). You’ll notice that most kana consist of a consonant plus a vowel (the vowels come from the first column: a, i, u, e, o). Let’s take a look at the “ka” column.

• か :: ka :: This is just K + あ (a), therefor it has a “kah” sound.
• き :: ki :: This is just K + い (i), therefor is identical to the word “key” in English
• く :: ku :: This is just K + う (u), therefor has a “koo” sound, like “kublai khan” or cool.
• け :: ke :: This is just K + え (e), therefor has a “keh” sound, like “kettle”
• こ :: ko :: This is just K + お (o), therefor has a “koh” sound like comb.

Do you see the pattern here? If we go from right to left on the hiragana chart, you’ll see that the pattern continues.

• あ (a), か (ka), さ (sa), た (ta), な (na), etc.
• い (i), き (ki), し (shi), ち (chi), に (ni), etc.

See the pattern there? In the “i” row, you’ll notice that there’s some exceptions in there (shi & chi). Let’s go through all the exceptions right now, to get them out of the way. Keep these in your mind and refer back to this list when you’re confused.

• し (shi) – This is the first of the “exceptions.” Instead of pronouncing it like the other columns (you would think you’d pronounce this “see,” right?) pronounce it like the word “she.” When written in romaji you’ll see it as “shi.”
• ち (chi) – Like “shi” (above), you add an “h” in here. Pronounce this one like “chee.”
• つ (tsu) – Instead of saying “tu,” this one has an “s” sound in there. It’s pronounced “tsoo”
• ふ (fu/hu) – Depending on what word it’s used in, you’ll hear this word as either a “fu” or “hu” sound. Most of the time it’ll be a “fu” sound, though especially in foreign words, it can go either way. When reading it directly off the hiragana chart, it’s often read as a “hu” sound, though just be aware that it’s going to be “fu” a lot of times when used in actual words.
• や (ya) column – This is the first “incomplete” column. It only has ya, yu, and yo. Basically, that just means you don’t have to worry about yi or ye. They don’t exist, so forget about them. You can also combine these with kana from the “i” rows. For example “ki” plus a small “ya” would become “kya.” See hiragana chart for more details.
• ら (ra) column – This column gives people the most problem, in terms of pronunciation. You might need to play the “ra-column” pronunciation video (see below) several times before you feel comfortable. The best description I’ve heard in terms of how to pronounce the Japanese “r” sound is that it’s a combination of R, L, and a little bit of D. Shape your tongue like you’re saying the word “lemon” and add a dash of D. That gets most people pretty close, and small adjustments from there will get you the real thing. More in the video below.
• わ (wa) column – This column only consists of two kana. を (wo) is only used as a particle, which we’ll learn about later. It’s not pronounced “wo,” but instead sounds almost exactly like お (o), and you can pronounce it that way.
• ん (n) – “n” is the only consonant-only kana, and has an nnnnn sound, like the “n” in “man.”

Take this opportunity to go back to the first column (a, i, u, e, o) and solidify the pronunciation of those kana before moving on to the pronunciation of the rest of the kana. Got it? Okay, go through each of these videos three times, unless otherwise specified.

Column 1: あいうえお Pronunciation

Column 2: かきくけこ Pronunciation

Column 3: さしすせそ Pronunciation

This video contains exception し (shi) in it. Instead of saying “si,” we add an “h” to it and pronounce it “shi” like “she went to the store.” Make sure you practice this column until you feel comfortable with “shi” instead of “si.”

Column 4: たちつてと Pronunciation

This video contains two exceptions in it: ち (chi) and つ. “Chi” is a pretty easy one to handle, but “tsu” sometimes gives people issues. It’s almost like saying “su” but you add a little “t” sound right at the beginning. Repeat the video until you feel comfortable with this sound. If you feel like you’ve plateaued, take a break and come back a little bit later, when you’re feeling fresh (and are actually physically able to improve). Just make sure you can replicate this sound before moving on to the next chapter.

Column 5: なにぬねの Pronunciation

Whew, okay, take a break now. There’s only so much muscle memory you can develop at one time! While you’re waiting, check this kid out.

Column 6: はひふへほ Pronunciation

The only strange thing about this column is ふ (hu). It can be pronounced two ways (in the above video I do a breathy combo-hu/fu sound), “hu” and “fu.” Most of the time you’ll hear it as “fu,” though with foreign words (remember katakana?) it can really go either way.

Column 7: まみむめも Pronunciation

Column 8: やゆよ Pronunciation

If you remember from the exceptions area above, this is the first column with only three kana. They’re pretty straight forward in terms of how the pronunciation goes, just remember that there is no yi or ye.

Column 9: らりるれろ Pronunciation

Go through the らりるれろ video daily 4-5 times until you feel comfortable. Use a friend and ask them if you sound the same as the pronunciation on the video since it’s hard to hear yourself. The らりるれろ pronunciation is a combination of several different sounds. If I were to make an estimation, it would be 75% “R” sound, 20% “L” sound, and 5% “D” sound. Can you hear aspects of all those in the video? Listen carefully and listen often if you don’t. Here’s a step-by-step to help you pronounce the Japanese “R”:

1. Make the English “Da” sound. Do this approximately ten times, and pay attention to how your tongue is shaped and where it ends up as you’re saying it. Your tongue should be pretty flat against the top of your mouth, with the tip of your tongue pushing against your top front teeth.

2. Make the English “La” sound. Also make sure you’re paying attention to how your tongue is shaped, as well as where it ends up as you’re saying it. Really exaggerate this sound and curl your tongue back so the bottom of it is touching the roof of your mouth. Notice how your tongue flicks forward when you say “la.” Do this ten times.

3. Now say “da la da la da la” ten to twenty times. Really enunciate each sound.

4. Now, try to say the Japanese “ra” sound. Put your tongue right between the spaces you put them when saying “la” or “da.” This is the magic sweet spot for people who want to pronounce the (very special) Japanese “r” sound. You can (and should) repeat this with ri, ru, re, and ro.

If you want more information or practice on this, I made a video and wrote an article over on Tofugu which you can view all about the “Japanese R Sound.”

Column 10: わをん Pronunciation

わ (wa) is fairly standard. を (wo) is a bit weird, though.  Instead of pronouncing it with a “w” sound, you drop the “w” and pronounce it like “oh/o.” ん (n) is the only consonant-only kana, and it’s placed after any other kana. For example, あ (a) + ん (n) is あん (an), ら (ra) + ん (n) is らん (ran), etc.

Dakuten

There is a whole other set of hiragana we haven’t gone over yet (look at the bottom left section of your hiragana chart). These are kana we’ve already gone over, but with “dakuten” attached to them. Dakuten come in the form of quotation marks and circles. By applying these little symbols to our kana, we actually change the pronunciation of them. On one hand, this is easier than learning completely new kana to make these new sounds, but on the other hand it can get a little confusing. For now, let’s just take a look at the pronunciation of these.

Dakuten 1: がぎぐげご Pronunciation

Dakuten 2: ざじずぜぞ Pronunciation

The only weird one in this column is じ. Instead of pronouncing it like the others (zi), we make a (ji) sound instead. Simple enough to pronounce, as long as you are aware of it.

Dakuten 3: だぢづでど Pronunciation

ぢ and づ are somewhat difficult to pronounce for some people, but luckily they are very rarely used. You won’t see these very often, but even so give the pronunciation a shot. It’s a combination of a D+Z sound. Practice this column extra if you need to.

Dakuten 4: ばびぶべぼ Pronunciation

Dakuten 5: ぱぴぷぺぽ Pronunciation.

Before moving on to the next section, where you start to learn how to read and write the various hiragana symbols, please make sure you feel comfortable with pronunciation. It will make things much much easier down the road if you spend some time here.

THE SMALL “TSU”

Remember the hiragana つ (tsu)? There will be times where you will see a small version of this. Big Tsu: つ Small Tsu: っ. See the difference? When you see a small つ this means you have to create a double consonant (i.e. two non-vowels put together). This creates a special sound which can be a little bit difficult for some to master, but I have faith that you can do it. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Take a look at these two words:

いぷん. In romaji, this would be spelled “ipun.”

いっぷん. See the small “tsu” in there? In romaji, this would be spelled ippun. The double consonant is the double “p” that you see in there.

Here’s how it works. When a small “tsu” is added, just double the consonant that follows it. Let’s try a few examples. You will probably have to refer to your hiragana chart if you haven’t started studying hiragana yet:

にっぽん = nippon

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やっぱり = yappari

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やっています = Click for Answer:

• yatteimasu

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めっぽう = Click for Answer:

• meppou

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やった！ Click for Answer:

• Yatta!

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The pronunciation for words that uses a small “tsu” is also slightly different. Let’s take a look at the examples above. When pronouncing words like this, think of it kind of like you’re adding a stress to the spot with the double consonant. I like to explain it as if you are almost putting a tiny space between consonants. For example:

にっぽん (nippon). In this example, you would separate the two p’s and add a stress: “Nip pon.” If you add a little space there, and say the word as if you’re ending the first part with the first “p” and starting the second part with the second “p,” you will do pretty well (see pronunciation video below for more practice).　Nip _ Pon

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やっぱり (yappari). In this example, you’d separate the p’s again. “Yap _ Pari.”

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やっています (yatteimasu). Like the previous ones, you’d pronounce it “yat _ teimasu.”

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 [/DDET]

It’s probably better if you actually practice with some real audio and video though. Go through the example words (and more) using the video provided below.

The more you listen to Japanese (we’ll get really into this in later chapters) the easier this (and the other tough pronunciations) will be. I don’t expect this to come naturally for everyone, and if you’re having trouble the most important thing is to never become lazy about it. As long as you are always physically trying to change it, and as long as you always stay aware of the improvements you need to make, you will be fine, and get better. Most people who have trouble make the mistake of getting lazy and forgetting about it, and trust me, you really don’t want to be that person. A good accent is really important! Speaking of good accents, here’s a subtle one:

“LONG VOWELS”

あああああああいいいいいいいいいいい！

When reading Japanese, you’ll often come across “long vowels.” Let’s get right into it and take a look at some examples.

• こういち　ko-u-i-chi. That right there is my name. In romaji, it can be written any number of ways, Koichi, Kouichi, & Kooichi being three of them. This illustrates (once again) how confusing and useless romaji usually is. There is one long vowel in my name, which is the こ (ko) + う (u) part. When an う (u) follows an お (o) sound (like the “ko” in “Ko-u-ichi), it is pronounced as a long お (o). To do this, just extend the こ (ko) a little bit longer than you would without.

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• おおきい o-o-ki-i. There are two long vowels in this one. おお (o-o) and きい (ki-i). In both cases, you would just extend the vowel sound (o & i) to make them longer. Don’t make it too much longer, though, otherwise it’ll sound like you’re singing or something. ああああああいいいいいい will always love ゆうううううううううう!

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• いい i-i. “ii” means “good” in Japanese, and is pronounced just like a long “i” sound.

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• そう (sou)、どう (dou)、もう (mou) … In all of these instances (just like with “Koichi”), you extend the “o” sound, and not the “u” sound.

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The difference between a long vowel and a normal length vowel is fairly subtle, and will take some listening practice before you get used to it. As we move on to learn more vocabulary, I will point long vowels out from time to time to make sure you remember the correct pronunciation. Our flashcard service (smart.fm) will also be a good resource for learning the pronunciation of long vowel sounds.

COMBINATION HIRAGANA

Besides the “small tsu” you will also see other “small” hiragana from the  や (ya) ゆ (yu) よ (yo) column. By combining a small ya, yu, or yo kana to any kana from the い (i) row (for example: i, ki, shi, chi, ni, hi, mi, ri, etc), you get yourself a new “combination sound.” These combination sounds are on your hiragana chart on the left side, where you can see them in action. Here are some examples:

きゃ = kya. When dealing with small ya, yu, or yo, you add it to an “i-kana” and drop the “i” part. Ki + small ya = kya.

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じゃ = jya. ji + small ya = jya.

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にゅ = Nyu. Ni + small yu = nyu. Just like the other ones, we drop the “i” and combine it with the “Y” sound.

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みょ = Myo. Mi + small yo = myo.

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りゃ、りゅ、りょ = Rya, Ryu, Ryo = Your worst nightmare. Remember how to pronounce the R-column? Good. Now, apply that to combination hiragana and practice practice practice!

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For the most part, if you’ve mastered the pronunciation of the above kana, you should be able to pronounce these ones just fine. That being said, however, please go through this pronunciation practice video a couple of times until you feel comfortable with them. Use your hiragana chart for reference.

There will be more opportunity to practice these “combination-kana” in the coming chapters, but for now the important thing is that you have the pronunciation down. If you feel like you’ve done a good job with the pronunciation of the hiragana characters, and are ready to start reading and writing, then feel free to move on. If you’re still shaky on a couple of things, go back and practice some more. Remember, repetition only works if you’re doing the correct thing over and over. It definitely doesn’t work when you do the wrong thing over and over. Make sure you focus on quality, not quantity, and it will come quickly enough.

Chapter Content

• Hiragana Chart

Before You Continue

• Know how to pronounce the normal hiragana
• Know how to pronounce the dakuten hiragana (and know what the dakuten hiragana are!)
• Know how to pronounce and use the small “tsu”
• Understand how long vowels work
• Understand how “combination-hiragana” works and be able to pronounce them.

Reading, Writing, and Memorizing Hiragana →