Hiragana

The chart is called gojūon, 'fifty sounds', after its traditional five-by-ten grid. Columns follow the vowels a, i, u, e, o, and rows follow the consonants k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r and w. Some cells have fallen out of use, which is why modern Japanese has 46 basic hiragana rather than fifty. Japanese dictionaries are ordered by this chart, not by the Latin alphabet.

A few syllables do not follow the pattern of their row in rōmaji: し is shi, ち is chi, つ is tsu and ふ is fu. The character を is pronounced o and is used only as the object particle; ん is the only character that stands for a consonant alone.

Two small marks extend the chart. Two strokes at the upper right, called dakuten, voice the consonant: か ka becomes が ga, さ sa becomes ざ za, た ta becomes だ da and は ha becomes ば ba. A small circle, the handakuten, turns the h row into p: は ha becomes ぱ pa.

ぢ and づ sound the same as じ and ず and appear only in a few words, typically where a compound voices an original ち or つ, as in はなぢ (hanaji, nosebleed).

Syllables such as kya, sho or ryu are written with an i-column character followed by a smaller や, ゆ or よ. The size matters: きよ is kiyo in two syllables, while きょ is kyo in one. These combinations appear constantly in Sino-Japanese words such as とうきょう (Tōkyō) and りょこう (ryokō, travel).

A small っ doubles the following consonant and adds a short pause: きって (kitte, stamp) differs from きて (kite, come). In rōmaji this is shown by doubling the consonant.

Long vowels are written by adding a vowel: おかあさん (okāsan, mother), おにいさん (onīsan, older brother). Long o is usually written with う, as in とうきょう (Tōkyō) and がっこう (gakkō, school), and long e usually with い, as in せんせい (sensei, teacher). Vowel length changes meaning, so it must be learnt from the start.

Three particles keep historical spellings. The topic marker is written は but pronounced wa; the direction marker is written へ but pronounced e; and the object marker is を, pronounced o. こんにちは (konnichiwa) ends in は for this reason: it began as a phrase meaning 'as for today'.

Learning row by row, and writing each character by hand in the correct stroke order, fixes the shapes in memory better than reading alone. Mnemonic pictures help with look-alikes such as ぬ and め, さ and ち, or は and ほ.

After the chart, the fastest reinforcement is reading: children's books, graded readers and textbook dialogues. Typing Japanese on a phone or computer also trains recognition, since the input method converts kana into kanji.