Pronouncing & Writing Hiragana

This page will go through how to properly pronounce and write hiragana.

Print out this gridded paper to help you practice your writing!

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First, I'll briefly go through one way that helps me remember the order in which the alphabetic sounds go.

Take the first characters (あ、か、さ、た、な、は、ま、や、ら、わ、ん）

• In Japanese, 『あか』means "red." So, you can remember that that first two columns should start with 『あ 』and 『か』.

• Then, I take the next three characters and follow the name Satana which I randomly came up with. This way it reminds me that the next three columns begin with 『さ』、『た』、and 『な』.

• Next, I take the three characters to form the piano brand, Yamaha, backwards.

やまは

はまや

• For the next two, I think of waddup which sounds very close to how you would pronounce 『わら』. However, because it should be flipped I just remember to make it 『ら』and 『わ』.

• The last one（ん） is the easiest to remember because it's the sound Japanese tend to make when they're agreeing with something.

Hiragana Pronunciations

あ、い、う、え、お

か、き、く、け、こ

さ、し、す、せ、そ

た、ち、つ、て、と

な、に、ぬ、ね、の

は、ひ、ふ、へ、ほ

ま、み、む、め、も

や、ゆ、よ

ら、り、る、れ、ろ

わ、を、ん