Quick question: わ or は?

[FinalNameLeft]

Hi there,

This might seem a stupid question, but I'm really new to japanese, and this question/problem seems to be following me!!

I've just learned the entire hiragana, and in my world, wa is written わ. But apparently it's not always so - in different phrases written here on this site and in my dictionary and other palces on the internet for instance, I sometimes see wa written as は. How come? Does it have something to do with wa as a particle? It really doesn't make sense to me! Could someone please explain this phenomena?

Domo arigato in advance!

//Maria

[zakojanai]

You've got it. When は　is used as a particle, it's pronounced wa. Another instance where はis pronounced wa is in こんにちは.

[FinalNameLeft]

Okay, thanks zakojanai! Do you know if these kind of questions/more information on the kana will be delt with in future lessons (I just finished the ten first survival phrases )? Or should I find information on my own?

Once again, ありがとう in advance!

[zakojanai]

Well, I'd already been studying Japanese for several years when I discovered this website, so I'm not terribly familiar with what's in the beginner lessons. I kind of doubt they cover it, but there might be something in the PDFs.

If you can already read/write the kana then there's not much left to do in that area.
There are very few exceptions in how they are read. You've already learned one. The only other two I can think of is へ is read as e when it's used as a particle and を　is only used as a particle and read the same as お.

Anyway, this is one of the easiest areas of Japanese, and I'm sure you'll have it down in no time. Good luck!

[FinalNameLeft]

Okay, I got it. Thank you so much.

[bebox7]

Yes there's a few tricky exceptions that had me stumped early on and this was one of them. I bought the Early Reader series to try and learn by reading simple Japanese stories and I couldn't figure out why I could never find some words in the dictionary. Once you get to the particles you get that moment when the light bulb goes off.

The other one that got me at some point was the small tsu っ which acts as a doubler of the next character's first letter as in がっこう (gakkou).

Beginners, of course, think that reads as ga-tsu-ko-u until you finally stumble across the small tsu explanation in your textbooks - another light bulb moment

[cheatzero]

Wow, I'm glad I found this! I'm going through the beginner lessons, and the Ha, Wa thing was really confusing me...

I was pretty sure they weren't spelling it wrong...


あれがと!