Hiragana 2: the ha, ma, ya, ra and wa rows, and ん

ん is the only hiragana with no vowel, and in the word game shiritori, ending on it loses.

The second half of the chart adds 21 hiragana, which brings you to all 46. Most of them behave as regularly as the first half, but this is where Japanese sounds start to differ from English: a fu made with the lips instead of the teeth, an r that is neither English r nor l, and a final n that changes with the sound after it. By the end of this unit you can read any word written in plain hiragana without voicing marks, including おやすみ (good night) and すみません (excuse me).

The h and m rows

The h row is は ha, ひ hi, ふ fu, へ he, ほ ho. ふ is the odd one. It is written fu, but there is no f made with the teeth. Bring the lips close together, as if cooling soup, and blow gently while saying u. ひ also has a slight hiss in it, a bit like the h in huge. The m row is entirely regular: ま ma, み mi, む mu, め me, も mo. Two shapes cause most mistakes here: は and ほ differ only by the extra line across the top of ほ.

The y and r rows

The y row has only three kana: や ya, ゆ yu, よ yo. Modern Japanese has no yi or ye sound, so those slots stay empty. The r row, ら ra, り ri, る ru, れ re, ろ ro, uses a single quick tap of the tongue tip on the ridge behind the upper teeth. Americans already make this sound in the middle of better or water. It is not a rolled r, and it is not the English r with the tongue pulled back. If you say l you will usually be understood, but the tap is closer.

わ, を and ん

The last row is わ wa and を. を sounds exactly like お, o, and in modern spelling it has one job: it marks the object of a verb, as in ほんを よむ (hon o yomu, read a book). Japan’s official spelling rules keep を for that particle and use お everywhere else. Two old kana from this row, ゐ (wi) and ゑ (we), were retired by the 1946 spelling reform, which replaced them with い and え. You will meet them only in old texts and some brand names.

ん is different from every other kana: it has no vowel, yet it still takes a full beat. Its sound copies the sound that follows. Before m, b or p it becomes m, as in さんま (sanma, Pacific saury). Before n, t or d it is n, as in みんな (minna, everyone). Before k or g it moves to the back of the mouth, the ng of sing, as in りんご (ringo, apple). At the end of a word, as in ほん (hon, book), it is a soft nasal hum. Japanese speakers do not think of these as different sounds. What they notice is the length: ん must last a whole beat.

Look-alike pairs

A few pairs in the second half look alike, so learn them side by side. ね (ne), れ (re) and わ (wa) share the same left stroke; only the right side changes, curled, flicked out or rounded. ぬ (nu) has a loop at the end and め (me) does not. る (ru) ends with a loop and ろ (ro) does not. は (ha) and ほ (ho) differ by one line. The Japan Foundation’s free Hiragana Memory Hint app pairs every kana with a picture, and drawing your own sketch for each tricky pair works on the same principle.