0.2 Hiragana I — あ to と, and the grid behind all 92 characters — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the first twenty hiragana, あ through と , without hesitating. Explain the shape of the whole system: five vowels across, consonants down — the grid called 五十音図 ( gojūonzu ). Write each of the twenty with the strokes in the right order, and say why the order matters even though nobody sees it. Read twenty-four real words and three real sentences made only from these twenty characters. Prerequisites : lesson 0.1 — you should be able to say what hiragana, katakana and kanji are each for. Twenty characters is two evenings of work. The grid they sit in, though, is worth more than the twenty, because the same grid organises the next twenty-six hiragana, all forty-six katakana, the dictionary order of every Japanese word, the verb conjugations you will meet in lesson 4.10, and the order of the buttons on a Japanese phone. Learn the grid once; use it for the rest of the course. The grid: five vowels, then consonants over them Japanese has exactly five vowels. Not five vowel letters with a dozen sounds behind them, as in English — five vowels, each with one value, and they never reduce to a schwa. In the traditional order they run a i u e o , and that order is fixed; it is the alphabetical order of the language. Every other syllable is a consonant laid over one of those five. So the system is not a list of characters to memorise but a table to fill in. Here are the first four rows — the twenty characters of this lesson. Read across, then down. Row Characters Read as vowels あ い う え お a i u e o k-row か き く け こ ka ki ku ke ko s-row さ し す せ そ sa shi su se so t-row た ち つ て と ta chi tsu te to Three cells are marked, and they are the only irregularities in this lesson. Where the grid predicts si , ti and tu , Japanese actually says shi , chi and tsu . These are not exceptions somebody invented; the consonants shifted in front of the i and u vowels centuries ago and the spelling kept the old position. The grid is still right about where the characters live — ち is in the t-row, and behaves like a t in every conjugation — but the sound has moved. Expect this pattern: the grid is a map of the system , and the pronunciation sits slightly on top of it. The five vowels, precisely Get these right now and you will never have to unlearn them. Each is short, tense and unchanging — no glide at the end, no relaxation into a second sound. Character Sound, and the English trap あ [a] Between father and cat , short. Never the ay of day . い [i] The ee of see , but clipped short. Never the i of sit . う [ɯ] Like oo in book , with the lips unrounded — this is the one English does not have. え [e] The e of get . Never the ay of day ; it must not glide. お [o] The o of or , short and rounded. Never the ow of go . The two hardest for an English speaker are う and え . English oo pushes the lips forward into a circle; Japanese う keeps them flat, which makes the vowel sound thinner and slightly swallowed. And English cannot say a long e without sliding it towards i : say day slowly and you will hear two vowels. Japanese え has one, held level. Lesson 1.2 will show you that this matters for meaning, not just for accent. Shapes that will try to confuse you Four pairs cause almost all the early mistakes. Look at each pair side by side now, and the confusion mostly does not form. Pair How to keep them apart あ and お Both have a cross-stroke and a loop. あ 's loop hangs below and to the left; お has a small tick on the upper right and no left loop. い and こ い is two strokes side by side (vertical); こ is two strokes stacked (horizontal). く and へ Both are a single angled stroke. く opens to the right; へ (lesson 0.3) opens downward and is much flatter. さ and き Identical apart from the cross-strokes: さ has one, き has two. Stroke order, and why it matters Nobody sees the order in which you drew a character, so the rule looks like etiquette. It is not. Three things depend on it. Handwriting recognition on a phone or tablet reads the sequence , not the finished picture, and will refuse a character drawn backwards. Cursive handwriting — which is what you will actually have to read from a Japanese person — is stroke order performed quickly, so a character you cannot write you will not be able to read when it is written fast. And counting strokes is how you look a kanji up in a paper dictionary, which you will need in phase 2. Six rules cover almost everything, and all of them are in force from this lesson: Top to bottom. Left to right. Horizontal before vertical when they cross. Outside before inside. A centre stroke before the strokes on either side of it. Any stroke that closes a box comes last. Worked examples from this lesson's twenty. か is three strokes: the long curved stroke on the left, then the short cross-stroke, then the tick on the right — left to right. き is four: the upper cross-stroke, the lower cross-stroke, then the long descending curve, then the small hook — top to bottom, and the horizontals before the vertical that crosses them. た is four: cross-stroke, descending stroke, then the small こ -like pair on the right. す is two: the cross-stroke, then one long stroke that goes down, loops left and finishes — one continuous movement, not three separate marks. Write each of the twenty ten times, saying the sound out loud on every repetition. Saying it matters more than the writing: you are building the link between shape and sound, and silence builds only half of it. Twenty-four words Every word here is spelled with the twenty characters of this lesson and nothing else. You are not being asked to memorise the meanings yet — read the shapes, say the sounds, and let the meanings stick if they want to. Word Meaning Notes あお ja ao blue あさ ja asa morning あした ja ashita tomorrow あき ja aki autumn いえ ja ie house いす ja isu chair うえ ja ue above, on top of うし ja ushi cow うた ja uta song えき ja eki railway station おかし ja okashi sweets, a snack おとこ ja otoko man かお ja kao face かさ ja ka sa umbrella きく ja kiku to listen, to as