Hiragana begins: vowels, k and s sounds

Japanese combines hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana writes grammatical endings, particles and many everyday words; katakana often writes loanwords and foreign names; kanji carries meanings and has readings that depend on the word. This lesson begins with あいうえお, かきくけこ and さしすせそ. Romaji, Japanese in Latin letters, helps with pronunciation at first; you will read and write in kana.

The five vowels a, i, u, e and o are relatively steady sounds: avoid turning them into English-style glides. Most basic kana represent one mora, a timing unit. あ is one beat, and あさ, morning, is two: a-sa. The s row includes し shi, not an English see sound. Japanese u often has less lip rounding than English oo.

Watch where each stroke starts, changes direction and ends. A stroke is a continuous pen movement, whereas a mora measures speech. Handwritten き and さ commonly leave the final curved part separate, even when a printed font joins it. For そ, more than one established handwriting form exists. Follow the supplied model while recognizing these normal variants.

Watch each animation, trace each kana twice, then hide the outline and copy it into the blank square. Read あさ, いす and すし from their kana before checking romaji. On paper, write one row of vowels and one short word from memory. Compare shape and spacing with the reference; a photograph can assess visible writing but cannot reveal your stroke order.