Hiragana Japanese Vowel Spelled Sounds Writing Kana Word Words

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Hiragana (平仮名, literally "smooth kana") are a Japanese syllabary, one of four Japanese writing systems (the others are katakana, kanji and romaji).

Hiragana are used for:

Japanese words for which there are no kanji, for example particles such as kara から and suffixes such as ~san さん.
Japanese words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer, not expected to be known to the readers, or too formal for the writing purpose.
Verb and adjective inflections, for example in tabemashita 食べました (used like this, hiragana are called okurigana 送り仮名).
Giving the pronunciation of kanji for readers who may not know them (used like this, hiragana are called furigana).

Each hiragana represents one syllable (technically, one mora), and is either a vowel on its own (such as a あ), a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か), or ん, which sounds like the English "m" or "n".

The presence of hiragana among Chinese characters is usually sufficient to identify a text as Japanese.

1 The hiragana writing system

The hiragana consist of a basic set of characters, the gojuon (五十音, literally "fifty sounds", but only 45 are in common use today), which can be modified as follows:

Adding a dakuten (濁点) marker ゛ turns an unvoiced consonant into a voiced consonant, in particular it changes k→g, t→d, s→z, and h→b.
Adding a handakuten (半濁点) marker ゜ changes h→p.
Adding a small version of the hiragana for ya, yu or yo (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) changes a preceding i vowel sound to a glide palatalization.
A small tsu っ indicates a geminate consonant. This only appears before fricatives and stops. This is represented in romaji by doubling the following consonant. Occasionally this will follow the last vowel in a word to indicate surprise.

There are ways to represent other sounds with hiragana, using minuscule versions of the five vowel kana. This is not generally used in formal writing, but is occasionally used with loanwords in katakana in an attempt to approximate more closly the source word's pronunciation.

There are a few hiragana which are not in the standard modern set. wi ゐ and we ゑ are obsolete. vu ゔ is modern and is pronounced as bwu to approximate the "v" sound in foreign languages such as English (it is rarely seen because transliterated words are usually written in katakana).

If you have a font including Japanese characters, you can view the following chart of hiragana together with their Hepburn romanization. Obsolete kana are shown in red.

Hepburn Romanization of Hiragana
あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o	(ya)	(yu)	(yo)


か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko	きゃ kya	きゅ kyu	きょ kyo
さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so	しゃ sha	しゅ shu	しょ sho
た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と to	ちゃ cha	ちゅ chu	ちょ cho
な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no	にゃ nya	にゅ nyu	にょ nyo
は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho	ひゃ hya	ひゅ hyu	ひょ hyo
ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo	みゃ mya	みゅ myu	みょ myo
や ya		ゆ yu		よ yo
ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro	りゃ rya	りゅ ryu	りょ ryo
わ wa	ゐ wi		ゑ we	を wo
				ん n

が ga	ぎ gi	ぐ gu	げ ge	ご go	ぎゃ gya	ぎゅ gyu	ぎょ gyo
ざ za	じ ji	ず zu	ぜ ze	ぞ zo	じゃ ja	じゅ ju	じょ jo
だ da	ぢ ji	づ zu	で de	ど do
ば ba	び bi	ぶ bu	べ be	ぼ bo	びゃ bya	びゅ byu	びょ byo
ぱ pa	ぴ pi	ぷ pu	ぺ pe	ぽ po	ぴゃ pya	ぴゅ pyu	ぴょ pyo

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1 The hiragana writing system

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