は/わ appearence confusion

[dminer]

みなさん　こんいちは！

I've recently begun to really dig into learning hiragana and trying to read the lesson notes in hiragana (and following the kanji version too) and I've hit something very baffling to me.

In the PDFs (the ones with an embedded font), I have begun to notice that all the 'wa' particles look like the hiragana for 'ha', は. When I track this into the romaji text, it is definitely a 'wa', わ, and you can hear it is a 'wa' in the audio.

Now, I'm gotten my computer setup and configured to allow for Japanese input using pretty much romaji typing. Thus, I have been typing what I read to help my retention of hiragana and to just learn how to spell Japanese words.

So, this is where my confusion starts because I have to type 'ha' for the same wa particle symbol I see in the PDFs and on web pages. The symbol I see is the same one on the hiragana chart on this site too. I wanted to be sure I wasn't going crazy and looked up 'wa' and 'ha' in "Remembering the Kana" and it matches what I see on my computer screen.

As an example, look at Newbie S1 lesson 2 and find the 3rd line of text. Yamaguchi has a line that uses the 'wa' sound as part of a word and as a particle in the hiragana. The word, Watanbe-sensei, uses the expected wa symbol of わ but the wa particle looks like は (ha symbol).

I don't believe I have a technical difficulty on my end that is displaying things strangely. However, I don't understand why the particle symbol for wa looks like ha but still said as 'wa'. Was this covered somewhere and I just missed it?

This might answer why 今日は (こんにちは) and 今晩は (こんばんは) have a 'ha' symbol but I definitely hear a 'wa' sound (hinting now this is a wa particle).

Regards,
Dan

[untmdsprt]

Welcome to the real world of Japanese! The sooner you learn hiragana, the better your life will be.

You are correct that "wa" is indeed typed as は as in わたし は untmdsprtです。

But wait! You have を - wo, へ - e

"wo" is said as "o" - nani o shimasu ka なにをしますか

and "he" is said as "e" - Tokyo e ikimasu　とうきょうへいきます

[dminer]

lol. This is confusing but I'm happy to know I'm not going crazy. It would be interesting to know the history behind this convention. Plus, I'm so glad you mentioned 'wo' and the o sound fun. I have seen this a few times already and been scratching my head but decided I would have to research that a bit further.

I have been trying to write a little Japanese everyday on my facebook account and I guess I found my topic for today.

[Jessi]

To clarify, "wa" becomes は when it is used as particles (Same goes for へ and を) As you start to learn more and more Japanese you'll learn how all of these particles are used!

[untmdsprt]

If you can find a particle book where you live, this could also help alleviate some of the confusion you may have.

Just wait until you get to から、まで、に

[Javizy]

Hiragana is definitely a step up from romaji, but you'll soon realise what a pain it is to read without kanji. One huge benefit, though, is that you can read anything with furigana (hiragana readings displayed above kanji), which will allow you to read various textbooks, manga, and other useful materials.

For kanji inspiration, I'd check out this forum http://forum.koohii.com/index.php. You'll find a lot of stories about people who used the Heisig method and SRS flashcards to learn all the 2000 kanji and thousands of words within ridiculously short periods of time. After you learn to recognise kanji, you can learn to read all the words you want. Think, if you do just 25 new flashcards per day, that's over 9000 words in a year. I've learnt about 1800 in the past 50 days myself.