Japanese Hiragana Script For JLPT

When one starts learning a new language he/she has to study all its aspects like the reading, writing and speaking. In the same way when you start learning Japanese you have to study all these things. Japanese language stands out distinctly from the other languages because this language consists of three different scripts. The names of the three scripts which make the Japanese language are hiragana, katakana and kanji.

Written Japanese makes use of all the three scripts. In other words it is not a rule that while writing Japanese one should make use of only hiragana, katakana or kanji. You will observe that even a simple Japanese sentence can be a combination of all hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana consists of different consonants and consonant clusters. The Hiragana script has five basic sounds which are “aa”, “ii”, “u”, “e” or “o”. An important thing which you will realize is that all the consonants or consonant clusters end in any of these five basic sounds.

The hiragana characters or alphabets are divided into different series. Each series consists of five consonants except for the “ya” series. In addition there are some individual characters also which re not a part of any series. The names of the basic series are “aa”, “ka”, “sa”, “ta”, “na”, “ha”, “ma”, “ya” and “ra”. The individual characters are “wa”, “wo/ o” and “n”. The series “ga”, “za”, “da”, “ba” and “pa” are made by either adding “tenten” or “maru” to some basic series namely “ka”, “sa”, “da” and “ha”. Consonant clusters in hiragana are made by joining a small “ya” “yu” or “yo” at the foot of either of the “i” ending consonants.

It can rightly be said that without the hiragana script the Japanese grammar is incomplete. The particles which are one of the very important parts of the Japanese grammar are written only in hiragana and none other script. A grammatically correct sentence will always consist of minimum one particle. Therefore without the hiragana script written Japanese will not have its existence.

Other use of hiragana is while writing words which cannot be written using katakana or kanji. Many times you will also observe that a word is partly written in kanji and the other half is written in hiragana. When we start learning kanji we are taught that a kanji has two readings. Hence the Japanese reading of a kanji is always written in hiragana.

Katakana is also an important script of Japanese language as it helps us to write words which have been adopted from the foreign countries. Kanji is the most important and widely used script of Japanese language. Though kanji were taken from China they have now become a crucial part of the Written Japanese.

So whenever you start learning Japanese you are first taught the hiragana script and then the remaining two scripts. There is no difference between the series and sounds of the hiragana characters and katakana characters. However the script is completely different. So whenever you study these two scripts don’t learn them at the same time. It is very important that you like the language which you are learning. Hence love the language and it will be easy for you to learn it quickly.

By: Bradj John

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