Japanese Language: Hiragana Basics

Play Quiz

Study Flashcards

Spaced Repetition

Chat to Lesson

Podcast

Play an AI-generated podcast conversation about this lesson

<p>A consonant followed by a vowel (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

A syllabary used to write native Japanese words.

A syllabary used to write foreign loanwords in Japanese.

A language where each sound corresponds to a syllable.

There are five vowels: a, i, u, e, o.

Signup and view all the flashcards

Japanese syllables can include a consonant followed by a vowel.

Signup and view all the flashcards

The Japanese language uses two syllabaries, Hiragana and Katakana.
Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words, while Katakana is used to write foreign loanwords.
The Japanese language is a syllabic language, meaning each sound represents a syllable.
There are five vowels and 16 consonant-vowel combinations.
Syllables are constructed using three elements:
- A vowel
- A consonant followed by a vowel
- A consonant only
The first row of Hiragana consists of the vowels "a", "i", "u", "e" and "o" with corresponding symbols.
"A" can be used to represent the word for "mute," "I" means "well", "U" stands for "a cormorant," "E" means "tail" and "O" has multiple meanings including "love" and "blue."
Vowels can be combined to form words and sentences.
For example, "a" and "o" can be combined to form the sentence "a cormorant is hungry".
This video focuses on the first row of Hiragana.