Learn the Hiragana W column plus N
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| Hi everyone! Welcome to BASIC JAPANESE WRITING. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to master the Japanese alphabet! |
| You've learned these 43 hiragana characters from the previous lessons. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn three new characters, and just 2 new sounds. Yes, you've learned one of them before. Stay tuned to find out which one. |
| わをん |
| The first hiragana character for this lesson is わ. わ. |
| Do you remember that the hiragana character は is pronounced as "wa" if it's a particle? Well, the "wa" sound is actually signified by this character as well. わ! |
| To remember わ, think of it as a SWAN behind a number ONE |
| Many people have a hard time distinguishing between ね, れ and わ because their left halves all look the same. |
| Hopefully our mnemonics can come to the rescue. Remember, ね is a SNAIL with a spiral in its shell, れ is a REINDEER looking up in the sky, and わ is a WHITE SWAN wading on the water. |
| Hiragana わ is written in 2 strokes. |
| It starts the same way as the characters similar to it, so it starts with a vertical line that goes from top to bottom. |
| The second stroke starts with a short horizontal line that passes the first stroke. It then goes diagonally to the left passing the first stroke again and retraces back, but this time it makes a big curve and you're done. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| The third hiragana for this lesson is を. を. It is also commonly said as "o." "o." |
| Try to think of を as a crack in the WALL. |
| を is a very distinct character. It is never used in a word but instead it functions as the object marking particle. |
| So whenever you see it, that means that the word before it is the object of the sentence. |
| For example, りんごをたべました。This means "(I) ate an apple." The object of the verb たべました or "ate" is りんご or "apple," and it's the one that comes before を |
| Hiragana を is written in 3 strokes. |
| The first stroke is a horizontal line going from left to right. |
| The second stroke starts as a diagonal line that crosses the first stroke then turns and makes a hump. It should end lower than where it turned. |
| The third stroke is a curved line that starts from here and intersects the second stroke on the humped part. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| Our final character for this lesson is the hiragana ん. ん. |
| This one's easy. It looks like an italicized N. |
| Hiragana ん is also special because you can never start a word with it. It could only be found in the middle or end of words. |
| One more thing that's special about ん is that its pronunciation varies a bit depending on the syllable that comes after it. |
| It can sometimes have an "mm" sound when it comes before a B or P-sound. For example: こんぶ, and かんぱい. And sometimes it can have an "ng" sound when it comes before a "g" sound, like in はんがく. |
| Hiragana ん is written in 1 stroke. |
| It starts out as a diagonal line going down to the left. Then it turns and retraces a bit before making a wave. Flick your pen at the end. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| Let's see all the characters again. わ, を or "o" and finally, ん. |
| Quiz time! |
| Now, let's review what you've learned. I'll show you a character or group of characters and give you time to say them. Ready? |
| を. It looks like a crack in the WALL, right? |
| よ. |
| ぱ. |
| げ. |
| Which one is the hiragana わ? [pause 3 sec] It's this one! |
| ん. |
| しょ. Remember it's not しよ. It's しょ. |
| かわ. This means "river." |
| えん. It means "circle." It's also the Japanese currency, yen. In Japanese, we call it えん. |
| わたし. わたし is "I." |
| おんがく. This means "music!" |
| しんぶん. It's a "newspaper." Since after ん comes ぶ, we pronounce it as "mm." しんぶん. |
| おかあさん. おかあさん means "mother." |
| みずをのむ。This means "to drink water." |
| やさいをたべる。This means "to eat vegetables." |
| Great job! Did you know? There used to be hiragana characters for "wi" and "we"? However, just like how を is pronounced interchangeably as "o", "wi" and "we" was also pronounced as the vowels "i" and "e" so they became obsolete. You never know, but maybe を might become obsolete in the future as well. |
| Ok, let's wrap up this lesson by recapping what you've learned. |
| In this lesson, you learned the hiragana characters わ, を, and ん. |
| よくできました！You've now mastered all 46 hiragana characters and all 101 Japanese syllables! |
| Here are the 46 hiragana characters. They are used mainly for Japanese words and as grammatical particles. |
| These are the five vowel sounds and the rest are a combination of a consonant and a vowel sound except for ん. |
| This is the "dakuten" or "ten ten" mark that makes the consonant of the syllable voiced. It can modify the characters under the K, S, T, and H columns. |
| On the other hand, this is the "handakuten" or "maru" mark and it's exclusively used for the H column. It makes the consonant sound plosive. |
| Japanese digraphs are formed by adding a small や, ゆ, or よ to a consonant + an "i" syllable. They are pronounced by gliding to the Y-sound and not pronouncing the "i." |
| Pronunciation of hiragana characters is always the same except for these characters with alternate pronunciations: |
| は is pronounced "wa" when it is used as the topic-marking particle. |
| へ is pronounced "e" when it is used as a preposition. |
| を is actually more commonly pronounced as "o." |
| And ん can sometimes be pronounced "mm" or "ng," depending on the syllable that comes after it. |
| Congratulations! You now know all the syllable sounds native to Japanese! But wait! We're not done yet. Did you know that around 10% of Japanese is made of loan words from English? You will already know many Japanese words just by learning the loan words in katakana, so you definitely don't want to miss out on them. |
| Before you go, practice writing the following words on your own! |
| And to learn MORE Japanese, go to JapanesePod101.com. |
| Are you looking for an easy way to study Japanese vocabulary? Have you heard about our WordPower App? Rapidly master 4,000 of the most common words and phrases in the Japanese language right on your mobile device with this powerful app! The app is packed with cultural insights and practical Japanese phrases! |
| See you in the next lesson! またね！ |
Comments
HideDo you know any word with these hiragana?
Haseebさん、こんにちは！
(Haseeb-san, Konnichiwa! ““Hello, Haseeb!””)
Thank you for your positive feedback.😄 Your enthusiasm for learning Japanese is inspiring!
It's wonderful to hear that you're finding the lessons helpful and that you're excited to learn Kanji and Katakana. これからも一緒に頑張りましょう！(Korekaramo issho ni ganbarimashō! ""Let's continue to do our best together!"")
ありがとうございます！ (Arigatō gozaimasu! ""Thank you!"")
Yoshimi
Team JapanesePod101.com
Arigato Gozaimasu for such amazing lessons, even though i don't know many words being able to read japanese is a big help and i am looking forward to learning the kanji and katakana.
Hello Laure,
素晴らしい！ (Subarashii! ""Wonderful!"") I'm thrilled to hear that you've learned all the Hiragana and Katakana characters in just one week! Your hard work and dedication are truly inspiring.
Regarding your request for a printable PDF of the Hiragana and Katakana chart, I'm happy to inform you that we do have such resources available. Please check out these links:
www.japanesepod101.com/learn-hiragana/
www.japanesepod101.com/learn-katakana/
www.japanesepod101.com/japanese-alphabet
Keep up the great work, and don't hesitate to reach out if you have any more questions or need further assistance.
ありがとうございます！
Yoshimi
Team JapanesePod101.com
Hi,
Thank you so much for this serie!!! In only one week I've learn all the Hiragana and Katakana characters, wow... the mnemonics are INCREDIBLE. All the other website/ressources I tried had mnemonics that didn't look similar to the actual character... I was wondering if it was possible to have the Hiragana and Katakana chart used in this serie as a printable PDF to practice (the extended chart with the dakten and handdakten also? and the chart of the diagraphs?)? It would be really useful!
Thank you again!
Vinaさん
こんにちは！
コメントどうもありがとうございます😊
We are glad to hear your reassuring words.
Let’s have fun learning Japanese together:)
Sincerely,
Miho
Team JapanesePod101.com
ありがとうございます！ ひらがなはすごいですよね
もうむずかしいくない
Hello Andrew,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us a comment.
You are very welcome! 😊
Please feel free to shoot through any questions you have throughout your studies.
Sincerely,
Ali
Team JapanesePod101.com
Incredible group of lessons for Hiragana really helps beginners like myself grow in confidence in both words and reading comprehension. Thank you for helping to inspire belief in learning and for these great examples provided by Risa and others.
こんにちは Anderix,
Thank you so much for your positive message! 😇❤️️
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
We wish you good luck with your language studies.
Kind regards,
レヴェンテ (Levente)
Team JapanesePod101.com
ありがとうございます I made it to the end! :)
Thanks to Risa and Japanese 101 pod for this really good way to learn the hiragana characters!
I ll try to use my new knowledge (よろしくおねがいします):
りささん, わさびがだいすきです.
きょうはむしあつい.
じゃあね, Anderix
こんにちは Brenden,
You are very very welcome. 😇❤️️ We were so happy to read your positive message!
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
We wish you good luck with your language studies.
Kind regards,
レヴェンテ (Levente)
Team JapanesePod101.com
I've tried to learn Hiragana several times with other programs and failed each time. You all did such a good job teaching this I actually made it to the end and remembered everything! I'm going to keep on reading and writing so I don't forget it!😄 Thanks so much!
Duckさん
Thank you so much for your comment😄
Actually, it's a particle. こんにち means "today" and は is the subject-maker, so こんにちは literally means "today is," which makes it mean "how's your day?" or something like that, but we use it as "hello."
This goes the same with こんばんは. こんばん means “tonight.”😉
Please let us know if you have any questions :)
Sincerely
Ryoma
Team JapanesePod101.com
Konichiwa
Thank you for helping me in learning all Hiragana characters. I noticed that konichiwa is written with the は character despite it not being a particle. Is there a rule to this?
Musaabさん
Thank you for your comment!
Yes, good job👍
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Sincerely,
Erica
Team JapanesePod101.com
Here is a word with "ん”
こんにちは
meaning "Hello".
Jonahさん
Thank you so much for your comment😄
She says よくできました (yoku dekimashita), which means "you did a good job."
Please let us know if you have any questions :)
Sincerely
Ryoma
Team JapanesePod101.com
@7:17 Risa says what sounds like "Yokodomashita".
She also says this in all previous videos. What is the meaning of this phrase?
Thank you!
Hi Jose Gabino Cruz Carmona,
Thank you for your comment😄
We're glad to hear that!
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Thank you for studying with us!
Sincerely,
Erica
Team JapanesePod101.com
it was easier than I expected :3 I'm so grateful to found this learning page
ありがとうございました！