What is Japanese hiragana?

Japanese vowels and consonants

There are five vowels in Japanese (a column, i column, u column, e column, and o column). These vowels can be used alone (a row).

They can also be used in combination with consonants (k row + a column = ka) or consonants and semivowels (ky row + a column = kya). Consonants and semivowels can’t be used alone except for “n”.

Basic hiragana

Japanese has three characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is a phonetic alphabet. It is used to conjugate verbs and adjectives and as particles.

Below is a table of basic hiragana with their stroke orders and pronunciations.

	a column	i column	u column	e column	o column
a row	あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o
k row	か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko
s row	さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so
t row	た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と to
n row	な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no
h row	は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho
m row	ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo
y row	や ya		ゆ yu		よ yo
r row	ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro
w row	わ wa				を o

ん

Hiragana with diacritics

Japanese has two diacritics (゛ and ゜). (゛) changes voiceless consonants into voiced consonants (k → g). On the other hand, (゜) changes the consonant “h” to “p”.

Below is a table of hiragana with diacritics.

	a column	i column	u column	e column	o column
g row	が ga	ぎ gi	ぐ gu	げ ge	ご go
z row	ざ za	じ ji	ず zu	ぜ ze	ぞ zo
d row	だ da	ぢ ji	づ zu	で de	ど do
b row	ば ba	び bi	ぶ bu	べ be	ぼ bo

p row

ぱ

ぴ

ぷ

ぺ

ぽ

Contracted sounds of hiragana

Contracted sounds can be expressed using normal-sized hiragana and small “ゃ,” “ゅ,” and “ょ.”

Below is a table of contracted sounds of hiragana.

	a column	u column	o column
ky row	きゃ kya	きゅ kyu	きょ kyo
sh row	しゃ sha	しゅ shu	しょ sho
ch row	ちゃ cha	ちゅ chu	ちょ cho
ny row	にゃ nya	にゅ nyu	にょ nyo
hy row	ひゃ hya	ひゅ hyu	ひょ hyo
my row	みゃ mya	みゅ myu	みょ myo
ry row	りゃ rya	りゅ ryu	りょ ryo