User:Jun-Dai/Np/L1

= Lesson 1: Hiragana =

Overview
The Japanese written language, in its modern form, consists of:


 * かんじ (kanji, Chinese characters)
 * Two syllabaries, or alphabets:
 * ひらがな (hiragana) - the main syllabary
 * カタカナ (katakana) - the syllabary used for borrowed words, onomotopaeia, and emphasis.
 * Punctuation
 * Borrowed characters, such as Arabic numberals (e.g., 1, 7, or 0) or roman letters (e.g., a, b, c, etc.).

In order to learn Japanese, it is necessary to know the main Japanese syllabary, ひらがな (hiragana), so well that you never have to think about it. It consists of 46 basic letters, 20 voiced letters, 33 palatal letters, and the little-つ&mdash;100 letters in all. Just below is a chart of the 46 basic letters, with romanization. The chart should be read from right to left, in vertical columns (each of which should be read from top to bottom. Thus the first letter is あ and the last one is ん.

This chart is referred to, in Japanese, as 五十音図 (ごじゅうおんず, gojūonzu), which literally means "fifty-sounds chart" (why?). The first five letters are simply vowels, the next forty letters are consonant-vowel pairings, and the final letter, ん, is the one lone consonant in the Japanese language. The remainder of ひらがな can be illustrated in the next two charts of derived letters.

The column on the left are the half-voiced syllables. The remaining characters are the voiced syllables.

The left five columns on the palatal chart are also voiced/half-voiced syllables.

The last letter that should be mentioned is　っ, which is the little-つ. This is also known as 促音 (そくおん). Its effect is to double the length of the following consonant. きって, for example, is romanized as kitte. Without the っ, it would become きて, which is romanized as kite.

Now that we have the tools, let's discuss pronunciation before examining the ひらがな in detail.

Pronunciation (はつおん)
Pronunciation guide.

ひらがな, Column I: あ, い, う, え, お
illustrations, indicating how to draw each letter, and various representations of the letter (i.e., different styles of drawing them).

Vocabulary
Try to memorize all of the vocabulary in this section before continuing on in this book. Every chapter will assume that you know the vocabulary from all the previous chapters. Starting with chapter three, the vocabulary will be presented at the beginning of the chapter. As the first two chapters present the Japanese syllabaries, it is necessary to know the material in the chapter before being able to learn the vocabulary)

Beyond this chapter the following terms will be used without explanation. Additionally, you will be expected to use them in writing exercises.


 * 1) ひらがな - hiragana; the main Japanese syllabary
 * 2) はつおん - pronunciation
 * 3) etc.
 * 4) あじ - taste; flavor
 * 5) いろ - color
 * 6) and the rest of the words, which in combination must use all the hiragana letters.