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It is often easy to sit back and let guides like this teach you.

But that is not the most effective way to learn.

The most effective way to learn anything is to take an active role.

So, make sure you are not a passive student who simply reads through the guide.

Get involved and make sure that you practice the characters as you progress.

Make sure that you listen to the audio for the sounds each character makes.

Make the sounds yourself as you practice writing them.

Once you’ve finished the guide, be sure to revise using our recommended Spaced

Repetition Systems. And continue to hone your reading and writing skills with our

recommendations.

And, most importantly, havehavehavehave funfunfunfun.

- がんばってね！Good Luck!

We are going to start with the characterの which signifies the sound ‘no’.

This one should be easy to remember. Just think of a stop sign. It kind of looks like one

with the line cutting diagonally through an almost-circle. And stop means no!

Our next hiragana character isめ which makes the sound ‘me’ as inmemememellow.

め has the meaning of ‘eye(s)’. Yes, Japanese has plenty of words that consist of just one

letter!

And you don’t have to stretch your imagination too much to see that the character itself

looks like an eye!

We have moved fromの toめ becauseめ is the most similar character toの. This

makes for an easy transition and logical progression.

Once you’ve mastered the easy stroke of writingの, it isn’t too much of a leap to learn

how to writeめ.

You just start by drawing a small descending stroke on the left. Then you write the

characterの cutting through that stroke. Voilà! Easy-peasey, Japanesey.

Next, we are going to progress fromめ toぬ which makes the sound ‘nu’ as in nenenenew

Can you see that it looks very similar toめ?

The only difference is that this character ends with a fancy little loop.

Some people like drawing characters with loops. These are the type of people who love

calligraphy. Other people, however, find this style of writing a real nunununuisance. And that’s

one way to remember this character. It’s likeめ but it’s a nunununuisance because you have to

add a little loop at the end.

The next character we are going to learn isあ. This makes the sound ‘a’ as in faaaather.

In order to draw this character, we just have to add what looks like a bendy cross going

through a stroke similar toの.

Fromあ it is an easy progression toお which makes the sound ‘o’ as in oooonly.

Try writing these characters next to each other, making the different sounds as you write

them, in order to see the difference between them.

Once you’ve nailed the difference between these two characters, we can combine them

to create a word!

あお is the Japanese word for ‘blue’.

We also have enough characters to make another common word.

If we combineあ andめ, we create the wordあめ which means both ‘candy’ and ‘rain’.

If you want a way to remember the dual-meaning ofあめ, just think of your favorite

candy raining down from the sky. What delicious carnage that would cause!

Fromお we are going to progress toす which has the sound ‘su’ as in susususuper.

As you can see from the drawing, we just need to get rid of a little piece ofお and then

grab the bottom of the character and stretch it downwards.

Using the hiragana we have learned so far, we can acquire some basic vocabulary.

おす means ‘to push’.

おすすめ means ‘recommendation’.

To get our next character, we are going to do some more stretching.

Boy, these hiragana are flexible!

We take the bottom ofす and stretch it horizontally to the right in order to getむ. We

must also remember to add another little bit over this hiragana, just like the one we took

fromお.

The characterむ has the sound ‘mu’ as inmoomoomoomoo.

We can place the charactersす andむ together in order to getすむ which means ‘to live

(somewhere)’.

Our next hiragana isこ which has the sound ‘ko’ as in cocococoat.

From this we can get the wordここ which means ‘here’.

Fromこ we are going to jump toい which makes the sound ‘i’ as in eaeaeaeasy.

We also get the common wordいい which means ‘good’.

If we combineこ andい, we get the wordこい which means ‘carp’.

If you look at the drawing, you can see an easy way to remember both of these characters

and the word. The characterこ makes the pond enclosure, while theい are the fish

inside it.

Fromい we can move quite easily to the next characterり which makes the sound ‘ri’ as

in riririring.

We can also pick up a new word.りす means ‘squirrel’.

Fun fact: the most difficult English word for a Japanese person to say is ‘squirrel’. It

usually comes out sounding something like ‘squirr’.

Be careful with the Japanese ‘r’ sound. It’s not quite like the ‘r’ sound we have in English.

It’s actually somewhere between an English ‘r’ sound and an English ‘l’ sound. The best

way to master it is to listen to recordings and try your best to replicate the sound yourself.

Also be careful not to confuseり roい as they can look similar. If you do get the two

confused, you might end up sayingいす, or ‘chair’, when you meanりす, or ‘squirrel’.

Next, we are going to use the character we learned forこ and add a vertical line to the

left of it in order to create a new character.

This character isに and makes the sound ‘ni’ as in kneekneekneeknee. This is the particle for

‘to/in/at’. It also means ‘two’.

We also get a new word:にこにこ. This means ‘smile’. It is an onomatopeia word,

which Japanese people are very fond of.

The next character isた which makes the sound ‘ta’ as in tatatatally.

This character is particularly easy to remember because its formation actually looks like

the sound’s representation in the Roman alphabet. Ta-da! Easy.

We also get a new word:たいこ which means ‘(Japanese) drums’.

The next character isは which is pronounced ‘ha’ as in hearhearhearheart or ‘wa’ as in whawhawhawhack. When

it is used as a particle, it is pronounced ‘wa’.

は means ‘tooth’ or ‘teeth’.はは is a formal way of saying ‘mother’. Andはい is the

formal way of saying ‘yes’.

The next character we have isよ. If you rememberは, this one is easy. All we need to

do is remove the vertical line on the left and snap off the left part of the horizontal line.

よ makes the sound ‘yo’ as in yo-yoyo-yoyo-yoyo-yo.

This character kind of looks like a man thumbing for a ride on the side of the road.

Imagine a hitchhiker sticking his thumb out and yelling ‘Yo!Yo!Yo!Yo!Give me a ride!’

We get a few new words with this character:おはよう which is the informal way to say

‘good morning’;たいよう which means ‘the sun’; andよう which means ‘to get drunk’

or ‘to feel sick in a vehicle’.

The next character isな. Just imagine a boomerang came and knocked the small part of

よ away. And you getな.

We have a very important wordなに, which means "what".

Now if a Japanese person says something, but you could not catch what he/she said, you

can say "なに?".

In order to transition fromは to the next character, all we need to do is to add an extra

horizontal line above the first one, almost as if we are putting a hat on the character.

This creates the characterほ which makes the sound ‘ho’ as in hohohohot.

The next character that we want to learn is another very easy one.

The characterん makes the nasal sound ‘n’ as in annnny.

Now we can create some common and important words.ほん means ‘book’.にほん

means ‘Japan’. Andうん which is the informal version for ‘yes’.

But wait a minute… What’s this new character? We haven’t come acrossう yet!

Well, let’s introduce it along with another character now.

う makes the sound ‘u’ as in booooooooth.

A good way to remember this character is by looking at it and seeing the image of a man

who has just been punched in the stomach. You can imagine the sound he makes as he

gets punched – oof!oof!oof!oof!

If you get rid of the little bit that looks like the guy’s head, we end up with a new

character.

This character isつ which makes the sound ‘tsu’ as in tsutsutsutsunami.

This one is easy to remember because the character itself actually kind of looks like a

tsunami wave.

If we combineう andつ, we getうつ which means ‘to shoot’ and ‘depression’.

Next up, if we add a cross to the top ofつ, we getち which makes the sound ‘chi’ as in

chechechecheese.

ち means ‘blood’.ちち is a formal word for ‘father’.

Fromち, we can move toら which makes the sound ‘ra’.

Remember that the Japanese ‘r’ sound is not exactly the same as the English ‘r’ sound.

To get toら fromち, all we have to do is knock the vertical line off ofち so that it is

now hovering at a slant.

These two characters together form the wordちら which is a kind of ‘furtive glance’.

Fromら, we can move toろ which makes the sound ‘ro’ as in rowrowrowrow.

This character looks a bit like a 3. We can remember the sound and the appearance of

this character by remembering the popular children’s song:

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream!

Just like the character looks like a 3, we sing ‘row’ 3 times in order to remember how it is

pronounced.

Fromろ we easily get the next characterる which makes the sound ‘ru’.

We can remember this character because it looks like a rurururuined version of the character

before it. We just need to takeる and rurururuin it a little by curling the end of the character.

To get to the next character, we can just take the top part ofる orろ and turn it around

to createく which makes the sound ‘ku’.

We can now create the wordsろく which means ‘six’ andくる which means ‘to come’.

Our next character is made by adding two small lines to either side ofろ.

We now haveふ which is pronounced like a combination of ‘fu’ and ‘hu’. Again, it is

worth listening to this sound and attempting to repeat it yourself as it is not common in

English.

We can make some new words. Namely,おふろ which means ‘bath’;ふく which means

‘clothes’;ふる which means ‘to shake’, ‘to dump someone’, and ‘to fall from the sky’;

andふるい which means ‘old’ as in ‘old things’.

Our next character isけ which makes the sound ‘ke’ as in kekekekept.

け means ‘a hair’.

Next up we have the characterま which makes the sound ‘ma’ as inmamamamap.

If you remember how to writeほ, this character is an easy one to develop. You just need

to get rid of the vertical line on the left and move the top horizontal line downwards a

bit.

It kind of looks like themamamamast of a ship, don’t you think?

With this character, we can get the wordまん which means ‘ten thousand’. You might

think that’s a number you don’t often say, but when you deal in yen on a daily basis, you

will need to say it.

For our next character, we just need to take the characterん and drag the top portion

out to the left a little bit. We also need to add a little line on top. This producesえ which

makes the sound ‘e’ as in reeeed.

え means ‘drawing’, ‘painting’, or ‘picture’.

The next character we will look at isさ which makes the sound ‘sa’.

This is a tricky one because it is easy to confuseさ withち. It is best to practice writing

them both together, making the different sounds as you write each one, just to make sure

that you can differentiate the two.

Fromさ all we have to do is to add another horizontal line beneath the first one in order

to get the next character.

The next character isき and makes the sound ‘ki’ as in kekekekey.

And it actually looks quite a lot like a key.

き means ‘tree’.

We also get the wordさきに which means ‘beforehand’.

Rememberく?

For our next character we are going to bendく a little in order to formし which makes

the sound ‘shi’ as in sheshesheshe.

し means ‘four’ and ‘death’.

Fun fact: a lot of hotels in Japan will not have the number ‘four’ in a lift because it is bad

luck due to it also meaning ‘death’.

Fromし we are going to add some horizontal lines in order to makeも which makes the

sound ‘mo’ as inmomomomoment.

We also get the wordもしもし which is how you say ‘hello’ when you answer the

phone.

For our next character we are going to takeし and bend its tail downwards just a little bit

so that it lies flat on the ground. Then we are going to add a horizontal line and then

another smaller vertical line that curls round at the bottom towards the left.

This next character isせ and makes the sound ‘se’ as in seseseself.

せ means ‘height’.

We also get the new wordsくせ which means ‘a bad habit’ andくせー which means

‘stinks’ in a colloquial, manly way.

By the way, that dash at the end ofくせ, the one that looks likeー, is just a way of

showing that the vowel sound preceeding it is to be made longer.

The next character isみ which makes the sound ‘mi’ as inmemememe.

This character is a particularly fun one to draw.

みみ means ears.

みる means ‘to watch’, ‘to see’, or ‘to look’.

おみせ means ‘shop’ or ‘store’. We could just sayみせ to mean ‘shop’ or ‘store’ but

adding the prefixお makes your speech sound more polite. It’s called the ‘honorific

prefix’. Use it if you wish to speak with honor, young samurai.

Our next character isと which makes the sound ‘to’ as in toetoetoetoe. This is the connective

word ‘and/with’.

This is another simple one. Do you rememberつ? Just add a little line to it in order to

makeと.

This character kind of looks like a toetoetoetoe actually. It looks like a toe that has unfortunately

got a nail or a splinter stuck in it. Ouch. Looks painful.

We can make the wordとし which means ‘year’, ‘age’, and ‘city’.

Next up, manipulatingと a little bit, we can arrive at the next character.

This character isて which makes the sound ‘te’ as in teteteteddy.

て means hand.

In fact… It’s actually written on your hand for you to remember!

Have a look at your right hand and you will see a crease in your palm that is shaped just

likeて. TeTeTeTerrific!

Now, if we add what looks like a backwards-facingく on top ofて, we get our next

character.

This character isそ and it makes the sound ‘so’ as in sosososock.

We also get some new words. We getそと which means ‘outside’ andそう which

means ‘that’s right’ or ‘I see’. Japanese people sayそう a lot while another person is

speaking.

For our next character, all we need to turn is bendと a little bit. We need to get rid of

the splinter that is stuck in the toe – thank goodness! – and then we can turn the

character to the left a little bit and pull its sides down.

Now we haveひ which makes the sound ‘hi’ as in hihihihit.

We also get a common word by combiningひ andと to makeひと which means

‘person’.

Our next character looks a bit like what would happen ifち andと had a baby.

It makes the exact sound asお / o , but when Japanese people write romaji they write it

as 'wo'.

As a particle,を indicates the direct object of a verb.

This character kind of looks like a man who has just stepped over the side of a cliff.

Imagine him screaming ‘ohohohoh!!!!’ as he falls over the side.

Fromを we can move toゆ which makes the sound ‘yu’ as in youyouyouyou.

We can get the wordおゆ which means ‘hot water’.

Just remember: Oh,Oh,Oh,Oh, youyouyouyou will be in hothothothot waterwaterwaterwater if youyouyouyou forgetゆ....

Next we haveや which makes the sound ‘ya’.

It kind of looks like a man running at someone with his right arm outstretched. Perhaps

he is a rugby player and he is about to tackle someone. Imagine him screaming ‘ya!ya!ya!ya!’ as he

does it.

や means ‘arrow’.

Fromや we can getか if we pullや and tilt it to the side and straighten the part that is

curled.

か makes the sound ‘ka’ as in carcarcarcar.

か means mosquito. And part of this character looks a little bit like a pesky mosquito.

Look at those creepy legs as it flies about.

We get a few new words too. We can makeかう which means ‘to buy’ andやかん

which means kettle.

Our next character isへ and makes the sound of ‘he’ as in hehehehead.

We also get a new word withへや which means ‘room’. Imagine someone who always

greets everyone by saying ‘heya!heya!heya!heya!’ when they walk into a ‘room’.

Okay! We are almost done! Don’t worry!

Our next character isわ which makes the sound ‘wa’.

わ means ‘circle’.

You can remember this character because, just likeか looks like a mosquito,わ looks a

bit like a wawawawasp.

We also get the wordわかる which means ‘to understand’.

How are you doing? Do you understand everything so far?わかる？

Fromわ we can move toね which makes the sound ‘ne’ as in nenenenet.

We can move to this character just by curling the end ofわ a little bit.

ね even looks a bit like a fisherman casting his nenenenet out in the hopes of catching some

dinner.

ね means ‘root’.

We also get the wordねる which means ‘to sleep’.

To make our next word, we will takeわ and instead of curving it round at the end like

we did to getね, we are going to flick out to the right and give the character a little tail.

This character isれ and makes the sound ‘re’ as in a sound half way between rererered and leleleled.

れ means example.

And that just about does it… Almost!

We just have a few more little things that we need to add.

Once you get these handled, you will have a knowledge of hiragana, and you can

celebrate!

All we are going to do now is look at some ways that we can create new sounds with the

existing hiragana by adding some marks.

The first mark we are going to look at is called the ‘tenten’/てんてん.

This is two small dashes next to a character that changes its pronunciation.

Rememberは makes the sound ‘ha’?

Well, when you add aてんてん to it, the sound changes.

は can turn intoば andば makes the sound ‘ba’.

So we can suddenly get the wordばか which means ‘stupid’.

So, let’s see what other new pronunciations we can make withてんてん.

か->が “ga” き->ぎ “gi” く->ぐ “gu” け->げ “ge” こ->ご “go”

さ ->ざ “za” し ->じ “ji” す ->ず “zu” せ ->ぜ “ze” そ ->ぞ “zo”

た->だ “da” ち ->ぢ “ji” つ ->づ “zu” て ->で “de” と ->ど “do” 

は->ば “ba” ひ->び “bi” ふ->ぶ “bu” へ->べ “be” ほ->ぼ “bo”

Now we can make words likeがか which means ‘painter’;ぎん which means ‘silver’;

まずい which means ‘nasty’ when talking about food; andただいま which is a very

Japanese phrase which means ‘I’m back/home’.

So basicallyてんてん works with any characters starting with K, S, T, H.

K->GGGG, S->ZZZZ, T->DDDD, H->BBBB.

Now that we’ve got a handle onてんてん, we can move on to the next mark that alters

the way a character is pronounced.

The next mark is called ‘maru’/まる, which means ‘circle’.

This makes sense because the mark is, quite literally, a circle placed next to the character.

Theまる can be used withは Ha,ひ Hi,ふ Hu/fu,へ He,ほ Ho.

This mark changes the pronunciation like this:

は ha ->ぱ pa ひ hi ->ぴ pi ふ hu ->ぷ pu へ he ->ぺ pe ほ ho ->ぽ po

However, true “Japanese” words don’t really use theまる. The mark is mainly used in

words than have been adapted from English words – ‘Gairaigo’/EngRish words.

We will explore this further in the katakana guide, but some examples include:

パソコン pasokon – computer (comes from PERSOnal COMputer);ピース piisu –

peace (You know, when Japanese people take pictures, they go like “piisu!” and do the

peace sign); andペン pen – pen.

Now, finally, we are going to look at what happens when you see small versions ofや

“ya” ゆ “yu” よ “yo” つ “tsu”.

They are much smaller than the original versions and look like this:

ゃ ゅ ょ っ

The first three characters are used in combination with other characters.

They are used withき ki, し shi, ち chi, に ni, ひ hi, み mi, andり ri.

Examples include:

きゃ kya きゃく KYAku – guest / customer

きょ kyo きょく KYOku – (a piece of) music

ちゅ chu ちゅうごく CHUugoku – China

ちゃ cha おちゃ oCHA – (green) tea

にゃ nya にゃあ！ nyaa! Meow!

ひゃ hya ひゃく HYAku – hundred

みょ myo みょうじ MYOuji – surname

りょ ryo りょこう RYOkou – travel

Next, the smallっ. This signifies a ‘glottal stop’, or a small pause from closing the airway

at the back of the throat.

When you see this mark, it is telling you to leave a small gap between the characters on

either side of it. A less confusing way to think of what this represents, is to see it as kind

of a double consonant sound.

For example:

いっかい ikkkkkai – once (one time) or first floor

ちょっと chottttto – a bit

まって mattttte – wait

ちょっとまって chotto matte – wait a bit 

やった yattttta – yay!

And, on that final note, let’s sayやった！together because… We have finished!

Phew!

Congratulations on making it through.

Now, just make sure you have practiced writing each character a few times and listen to

the pronunciation. We have included a chart of the hiragana at the end of this guide.

We have a video that will help you with the sounds on the Japanese Ammo YouTube

channel.

As for revision, your will find using a Spaced Repetition System, or SRS, will make be

most efficient. This will cut your revision time down to the bare minimum and make sure

that you retain everything with ease.

A great SRS is Anki. You can download it and input your own information or load pre-

made flashcards into it.

Another great option is on a website called Memrise.

You won’t need to revise hiragana for too long. You could revise every day for a week or

so but after that it will be better to direct your efforts to native materials and vocabulary

lists.

Now that you are acquainted with hiragana, you need to keep sharpening your skills. So

read vocabulary lists in hiragana and make sure to acquire grammar and phrases using

hiragana.

In order to improve your reading skills, and once you have built up a basic vocabulary

and grammar base, you may find it enjoyable to spend some time reading manga. You

will read slowly at first, and need to keep this guide on hand for reference, but you will

soon pick up your pace.

Try to pick easy managa. You want to read books for small children.

Two great examples of children’s manga include Doraemon and Yotsubato. But do some

research and find something that appeals to you. And do be disheartened if you don’t

understand much. That’s just the way it will be in the beginning.

In order to improve your writing, you can keep a diary. Just writing a couple of lines will

be enough at the beginning. The diary can be typed on the computer or written by hand.

It is probably a good idea to combine both methods.

Good luck!がんばってね！

Thank you for reading.

We hope you enjoyed this guide and found it useful!

Best wishes,

The Japanese Ammo Team