Hiragana Pronunciation: Japanese Alphabet Syllabary

Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな or　ヒラガナ, Hiragana?) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana and kanji; the Latin alphabet is also used in some cases. Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora. Each kana is either a vowel (such as a あ); a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か); or n ん, a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English m, n, or ng (IPA: [ŋ]), or like the nasal vowels of French.

Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, including particles such as kara から "from," and suffixes such as ~san さん "Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms." Hiragana are also used in words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer or readers, or is too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, as, for example, BE MA SHI TA (べました) in tabemashita (食べました, tabemashita? "ate"), are written in hiragana. In this case, part of the root is also written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called furigana. The article Japanese writing system discusses in detail when the various systems of writing are used.

There are two main systems of ordering hiragana, the old-fashioned iroha ordering, and the more prevalent gojūon ordering.

The hiragana consist of a basic set of characters, the gojūon, which can be modified in various ways. By adding a dakuten marker ( ゛), an unvoiced consonant such as k or t is turned into a voiced consonant such as g or d: k→g, t→d, s→z, and h→b.

Hiragana beginning with an h can also add a handakuten marker ( ゜) changing the h to a p. A small version of the hiragana for ya, yu or yo (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) may be added to hiragana ending in i. This changes the i vowel sound to a glide palatalization. Addition of the small y kana is called yōon. A small tsu っ called a sokuon indicates a geminate (doubled) consonant. It appears before fricatives and stops, and sometimes at the end of sentences. This is represented in rōmaji by doubling the following consonant.

In informal writing, small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (はぁ, ねぇ).

There are a few hiragana which are rarely used. Wi ゐ and we ゑ are obsolete. Vu ゔ is a modern addition used to represent the /v/ sound in foreign languages such as English, but since Japanese from a phonological standpoint does not have a /v/ sound, it is pronounced as /b/ and mostly serves as a more accurate indicator of a word's pronunciation in its original language. However, it is rarely seen because loanwords and transliterated words are usually written in katakana, where the corresponding character would be written as ヴ.

With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (pronounced as wa, o, and e), and a few other arbitrary rules, Japanese is spelled as it sounds. This has not always been the case: a previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana usage, had many spelling rules; the exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system. The exact spelling rules are referred to as kanazukai (仮名遣, kanazukai?).

There are two hiragana pronounced ji (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced zu (ず and づ). These pairs are not interchangeable. Usually, ji is written as じ and zu is written as ず. There are some exceptions. If the first two syllables of a word consist of one syllable without a dakuten and the same syllable with a dakuten, the same hiragana is used to write the sounds. For example chijimeru (to boil down or to shrink) is spelled ちぢめる. For compound words where the dakuten reflects rendaku voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, chi (血 "blood") is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When 鼻 hana (nose) and 血 chi ("blood") combine to make hanaji 鼻血 "nose bleed"), the sound of 血 changes from chi to ji. So hanaji is spelled はなぢ according to ち: the basic hiragana used to transcribe 血. Similarly, Tsukau (使う; "to use") is spelled つかう in hiragana, so kanazukai (かな使い; "kana use", or "kana orthography") is spelled かなづかい in hiragana.

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[Zhungarian2]

Oh folks, stop flattering me this way. It is only a simple video on hiragana, nothing more than that.

[camreeno360]

The voice almost sounds demonic. lol

[mikeikesan]

私は怖いです。The slow parts are scary.... 0_o..I concur with everybody else its a great video to learn ひらがな　（Hiragana) pronunciation.

[tokyoblaze]

@sanethoughtspreader There is no difference in the pronunciation. However, after the war, Japan changed it's "kanazukai" so ず and じ is more frequently used than づ and ぢ. However, there are some exceptions including names of places such as 会津若松（あいづわかまつ）.

[sanethoughtspreader]

What's the difference between the two Ji's and the two zu's? I can't hear the difference. I mean chi and shi with '' and tsu and su with ''

[Xassta08]

haha i found portuguese words in the vid: "palavra" (word), "história do brasil" (history of brazil), "olhe" (look), "metro" (underground or subway) "não" (no), "sim" (yes), "séc. XXI" (21st century). proud to speak portuguese x). are you brazilian of japanese descendants?

[mariobros13]

Sorry, what really means the word きく　because in my book is Chrysanthemum, but in the dict i found ~Listen~

[omoshiroidayo]

@Gadzukesable hehe i also needed time to dechiffer it: the examples only fit to pics when knowing the words and voice down aieo (the slow one) is ridic...xD

would you if you dont know a word japanese know that "aoi" means blue?! it could be the ocean or whatever^^

[omoshiroidayo]

heh

[Gadzukesable]

@omoshiroidayo Wait.... what? xD

[omoshiroidayo]

i dont like this

the examples only fit to the oics ewhen knoing the words and te slow down aieo eg is ridic...

[arlet101]

Im learnimg on my own japanese and this video from all is very helpfull!! ありがとうございました!!

[EvnaOvni]

Sorry, I meant "westerners"...