The Japanese Alphabet.

The Japanese alphabet is usually referred to as kana, specifically hiragana and katakana. While the Hiragana consists of 48 syllables,
it is a phonetic alphabet where each alphabetic combination represents just a single sound. Thus any Japanese word can be written in
a way that can be read without having to remember how the word is pronounced. So the Japanese kana are much simpler, the way
something is written is the way it sounds. There is also Kanji, a Japanese system of writing based on borrowed or slightly modified
Chinese characters.




Hiragana Syllables

The table below shows the 48 Hiragana syllables:

a

ka

sa

ta

na

ha

ma

ya

ra

wa

n

i

ki

shi

chi

ni

hi

mi



ri

wi



u

ku

su

tsu

nu

fu

mu

yu

ru





e

ke

se

te

ne

he

me



re

we



o

ko

so

to

no

ho

mo

yo

ro

wo








Maybe you have noticed that many sounds are missing, thats why Japanese added some additional sounds using diacritics or
combinations of syllables, the table below shows the additional sounds in




Hiragana:

ga

za

da

ba

pa



gi

ji

ji

bi

pi



gu

zu

zu

bu

pu



ge

ze

de

be

pe



go

zo

do

bo

po















kya

sha

cha

hya

pya

rya

kyu

shu

chu

hyu

pyu

ryu

kyo

sho

cho

hyo

pyo

ryo













gya

ja

nya

bya

mya

(ja)

gya

ju

nyu

byu

my

(ju)

gyo

jo

nyo

byo

myo

(jo)









Katakana Syllables

Katakana are most often used for transcription of words in foreign languages, used to represent sounds, technical and scientific terms.
Katakanas main feature is short straight strokes and angular corners, thats why Katakana is considered the simplest of the Japanese
scripts.


a

ka

sa

ta

na

ha

ma

ya

ra

wa

n

i

ki

shi

chi

ni

hi

mi



ri

(wi)



u

ku

su

tsu

nu

fu

mu

yu

ru





e

ke

se

te

ne

he

me



re

(we)



o

ko

so

to

no

ho

mo

yo

ro

(w)o




ga

za

da

ba

pa



gi

ji

ji

bi

pi



gu

zu

zu

bu

pu



ge

ze

de

be

pe



go

zo

do

bo

po















kya

sha

cha

hya

pya

rya

kyu

shu

chu

hyu

pyu

ryu

kyo

sho

cho

hyo

pyo

ryo













gya

ja

nya

bya

mya

(ja)

gya

ju

nyu

byu

my

(ju)

gyo

jo

nyo

byo

myo

(jo)



For a modern Katakana there was a necessity to add some sounds, below is a list of additions to the katakana, used mainly to
represent sounds from other languages:


ye

va
()
va

she

ti

tsa

fa

wi

vi
()
vi

je

tu

tsi

fi

we

vu

ve

che

tyu

tse

fe

wo

ve
()
vo



di

tso

fo



vo
()
vya



du



fyu





vyu



dyu









vyo











Kanji Characters

Kanji are used together with three other systems to write modern Japanese, Kanji which is a Japanese system of writing based on
borrowed or slightly modified Chinese characters is used to write parts of the language such as nouns, adjective stems and verb stems.
For Kanji characters refers to the Chinese characters.