Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Japanese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [hiragana]

ひらがな. The cursive form of the syllabary used mostly for (but not restricted to) the grammatical features of written Japanese including verb endings and particles, and for native words written without kanji.

Note that hiragana usage often overlaps with that of and . They are not necessarily mutually exclusive though there are some useful rules of thumb.

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Why are the particles "は" (ha⇒wa), "へ" (he⇒e), and "を" (wo⇒o) not spelled phonetically?

As far as I know only three words (or particles) have irregular, non-phonetic spelling in Japanese: "は" - The topic particle is pronounced "wa" but the kana is otherwise pronounced "ha" "へ" - The movement towards particle is pronounced "e" but the…
hippietrail
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Why was both katakana and hiragana created?

Nowadays, katakana tends to be used for gairaigo and onomatopoeia, while hiragana tends to be used for native Japanese words. This is a slight simplification - more information is available here. However, English loanwords weren't a major concern…
Andrew Grimm
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What are the differences/characteristics between katakana, kanji and hiragana?

I know that romaji is the conversion from those to the roman alphabet, but what are the differences or characteristics between katakana, kanji, and hiragana? Are they used on a different context? Is one of them more formal than the others? Do they…
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Is ま (ma) related to ほ (ho) or は (ha) related to よ (yo)? What does adding a bar to the left mean?

I understand these character similarities might be arbitrary, like M and W being flipped. But it's tripping me up enough times that I thought if I knew a reason, perhaps it would help me memorize these characters. ち (chi), き (ki), and さ (sa) are…
ubershmekel
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Origin of the circle in ぬ, ね, and る

When looking at the hiragana ぬ (nu), ね (ne), and る (ru) one notices a small circle in the symbols. In fact that circle is the only difference when comparing them with the hiragana め (me), れ (re)　and ろ (ro). In the history of hiragana, is there any…
poke
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Does the particle "を" (wo) have a special use when at the end of a sentence?

I thought the character "を" (wo) was only used for the particle whose only job was to indicate the direct object of a verb. But today I saw it at the end of an exclamation on a sign I think on a shop: 西部に活力を!! So what job is を doing here?
hippietrail
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When should I replace kanji with hiragana?

When should I write 海山 and when should I write うみやま?
jim
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Why is konnichiwa spelt こんにちは?

Why is は used at the end of こんにちは? Is the last letter the particle は, or is there a different explanation? Which is correct: こんばんわ or こんばんは? mentions konnichiwa, but the question is interpreted more as "When should I use こんばんわ and when should I use…
Andrew Grimm
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Is it standard practice, or acceptable, to connect strokes in certain characters of hiragana?

I've been learning my hiragana from here: http://yosida.com/en/hiragana.html For the characters fu, mu, mo, na, ra, yu, and ya, I see a discrepancy between what's in the little box and what shows up when you click the character to see it being…
temporary_user_name
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I cannot recognise this kana

Hello. I've circled characters I cannot recognise. The top one looks like を but there is an actual をnext to it and it looks different. Why? The middle one is ゆ in my opinion. But I'm not sure about that. Why does it look different to the usual ゆ?…
Pavel
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Why are there 3 ways of writing in Japanese?

Why are there kanji, hiragana and katakana? Is there a logical reason behind this or just tradition?
sterz
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Why do some Japanese people write parts of their name in hiragana?

I have recently noticed that one of my coworkers writes his surname partly in hiragana when writing by hand. This strikes me as odd, because his surname doesn't have multiple readings (to my knowledge) and is made of relatively simple kanji. He…
Jasmine
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Are there words which consist of katakana and hiragana letters together?

Obviously many Japanese words consist of kanji characters plus hiragana since the latter are used for okurigana: 食べる 水割り 鷹の爪 Recently I'v started to discover a few words that use kanji characters plus katakana too: 段ボール 紙パック But I can't think…
hippietrail
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How has Japanese kanji and kana usage changed since 1945?

How has the percentage of writing using each script changed since 1945? With script reform, increasing influx of loanwords, and stylistic choices, several factors affect how much certain parts of the Japanese script are used in writing. Modern…
sqrtbottle
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Does a small tsu double all consonants?

In several sources it's mentioned that a SMALL TSU doubles consonants. My problem is, some websites give almost identical examples with: っ/ッ + (S, T, C, K, G, B, P) But what about the others?: っ/ッ + (M, N, V, W ...) When I use some online converter…
Pii83
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