Japanese Pronunciation Using 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 (and Seattle) sports teams. Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. You don’t want to be any of these people, they got screwed. Learn Hiragana now and lead a much happier life.

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. Before we begin, though, let’s talk about some time-saving tips that will help you learn more quickly and effectively. You can use these tips with everything you study from here on out, too. 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 that you can use as well. The goal is to learn hiragana as fast and as well as possible. Let’s be totally honest. Hiragana is a bore-fest, but it’s also really important. This is one of the few chapters that’s truly “difficult,” but once you get through it you’ll have surpassed at least 99% of people who ever thought “I’m going to learn Japanese.” Yeah, people quit that quickly. That’s not you, right?

Making Tasks “Actionable”

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 learn about “actionable tasks.” Everyone’s created and used some kind of to-do list at some point in their life, though most people don’t get a lot out of them (and end up getting rid of the list one way or another). There are several different “list making” types out there, and here are some of them. I’ve been all of them at some point in my life.

  1. The “Adds Everything” To-Do List Type: There are people out there who make huge lists with hundreds of tasks. If done right, this can kind of work, but in general most people get overwhelmed and end up ditching their long list after it becomes too much.
  2. The “Too Many Generalities” List: This is the most common to-do list. Very general items, such as “study Japanese” or “get Project B done” to-dos are a productivity killer. When you talk in general terms, you end up failing.
  3. The “Really Long Term Goals” List: Some people think way too far ahead. Sure, it’s good to plan for the future, but you aren’t Miss Cleo. Seeing the future probably isn’t one of your skills, so it’s much better to stick with short-term goals. Long term goals (anything farther than 2 weeks away, I’d say) are useless, and rarely come true.
  4. The “Spend so much time on my list I don’t get anything done” type: You know who you are. You enjoy writing up to-do lists more than you like getting those to-dos done. I’ve definitely done this a few times too.

Now, I don’t want to tell you how to keep track of your to-dos. You probably have your own system, and that’s fine. I do, however, want to make some recommendations that will help you keep your life, work, school, and Japanese studies in check. That means you’re happier and can study Japanese without worrying about other things (or, at the very least, you’ll be able to keep track of what you need to do next to progress in your Japanese language studies).

  1. Actionable Tasks: Every task on your to-do list should be actionable. This means you can take some kind of physical action upon it, right now. These are tasks that, when you complete them, you’ve moved closer to whatever your main “general” goal might be. These are not general goals like “learn Japanese.” That’s to-do suicide right there. These have to be things you can actually act upon. To prevent generalities, it’s best to spend a couple of minutes planning before you start something. What’s the next thing you can do (“do” is the important word here) that will get you closer to your goal of learning Japanese? When you come up with ambiguous to-dos, it causes you to freeze and stress out over your to-do items, which means nothing actually gets done. This takes away from your focus and makes it very difficult to do anything. Examples of good actionable tasks include: “be able to read and write the hiragana characters あ, い, う, え, and お consistantly in any order.” This is a specific thing you can do, and you know what you need to do to accomplish it.
  2. Stay Short Term: Like I said earlier, you aren’t a time traveler or psychic. You don’t know what’s going to happen two weeks from now. You do, however, have a somewhat decent idea what’s going to happen today, so plan short term and make adjustments as you go along. As long as your tasks are actionable and working towards a bigger goal, you’ll make it there when you need to.
  3. Do Two, Maybe Three Important Things Daily: Be honest, you probably don’t do more than three important things every day. Don’t create huge to-do lists of things to do, trying to get through all of them. Choose two or three, and be happy when you finish them. You always have the option to do more, but make sure you’re satisfied (and could stop, if you wanted to) after the first few. Personally, I use one sticky note per day and write two or three to-dos on it. If I get those things done, I’m happy, and I’ve had a productive day… and no, “checking e-mail” doesn’t count as important.

In a moment, you’ll be learning hiragana, and it will be important to implement some of these concepts. There are 46 kana to learn, which includes reading, writing, and saying all of them. Being able to break this lesson up into smaller bits is going to be really important. Consistency is going to be key, not studying for 8 hour bursts only once a week. Try to study hiragana (and only hiragana) 30-60 minutes a day until you’ve learned them. If you do that, and really focus, you should know your hiragana in less than a week, give or take. Let’s do it!

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, and that’s not even including the combination ones), 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 now, 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 if you want to save time in the short, medium, or long run.

The big question, however, is 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. Really, the best way to learn hiragana is to utilize a variety of resources. The main concern at this point is burn-out. Learning hiragana is boring, and the light at the end of the tunnel is tough to see. It takes a little while to learn, too. The reason you should use multiple resources to learn it is in order to prevent this.

I’m going to take you through everything step by step to hopefully alleviate burn-out and get you through this as quickly as possible. We’ll be using worksheets made specially for TextFugu, as well as some other (free) sites that do a great job drilling hiragana, combining to create a really effective method.

In this particular chapter, though, we’ll be focusing mostly on pronunciation. Even before you learn how to read and write the suckers, I want you to learn how to say all of them first.

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. A “kana” is basically just one of the “letters” (they’re not really considered letters, but that doesn’t matter) in the Japanese “alphabet” (also, not really an alphabet either… also doesn’t matter). There are a ton of hiragana charts out there already, all with similar layouts, but none of them do a great job in terms of pronunciation. I’ve made my own hiragana chart that I think will do perfectly.

Download TextFugu’s Hiragana Chart.

Open the hiragana chart (or print it out) and look at the first column (top right). We have the following characters:

あ → a
い → i
う → u
え → e
お → o

If you pronounce these as you normally would in English, they won’t come out right. Now, before you really get started, remember this: In terms of pronunciation, these first five kana are the most important you’ll ever learn, so you better learn them well. This chapter is 100% focused on pronunciation of the hiragana, not learning the hiragana itself, so you’ll have lots of time to focus and practice.

Let’s take a look at how the chart works, and then we’ll go through the videos to help perfect your pronunciation to the absolute best of your ability. Learning to read and write isn’t even important until the next section. Let’s take a look at the first five kana again.

  • 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 kana 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 proverbial 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.

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Make sure your pronunciation on these five is solid. Take a look at your hiragana chart and practice the pronunciations out of order (so you aren’t just repeating things without learning them), and then do it again. After you feel like there’s absolutely nothing else you can do with them, move one column to the left and take a look at か, き, く, け, and こ. If you take a look at this column and compare it to the あいうえお one, you’ll notice that they follow a very similar pattern. You’ll notice that most kana consist of a consonant (a non-vowel) combined with a vowel (a, i, u, e, o). Let’s take a look at the か (ka) column.

  • か → ka → This is just K + あ (a), therefore 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. Don’t worry about learning them now (you’ll do that in a minute). I just want you to have these in your mind so that they aren’t a surprise when you actually get to them.

  • し (shi) – This is the first of the “exceptions.” Instead of pronouncing it like the other columns (you’d think you would pronounce this “see,” right? But that’s wrong…) 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 the “chee” in “cheese.”
  • 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 or “combination hiragana” section below 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

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Column 2: かきくけこ Pronunciation

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Column 3: さしすせそ Pronunciation

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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

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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

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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.

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Column 6: はひふへほ Pronunciation

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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

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Column 8: やゆよ Pronunciation

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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

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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

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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

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Dakuten 2: ざじずぜぞ Pronunciation

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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

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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

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Dakuten 5: ぱぴぷぺぽ Pronunciation.

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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 =

  • yatteimasu

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めっぽう =

  • meppou

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やった！

  • 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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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.

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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.

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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

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 →