Having a Hiragana chart over your study desk will help you master the Hiragana syllabary. As Japanese has three scripts – kanji, hiragana and katakana, you need all the help you can get when you start to learn how to read and write Japanese.  However, there are a few flaws with the common Hiragana chart which I will explain in this post.

First, lets talk about the three Japanese scripts a bit more. Kanji is used for semantics, while hiragana and katakana are sound scripts. Hiragana is used to indicate verb inflections, particles and simple words for which kanji are not required, or suitable. Katakana for loan words.

When learning to read Japanese you should start with Hiragana. I have read arguments that Katakana is better to learn first for non-native speaker. The idea being learners can relate to Katakana easily as it deals with foreign words.  While this might be true, it won’t help you with your general understanding of Japanese. Unlike Hiragana, Katakana isn’t used for verb inflections, particles and other grammatical elements. Nor is it used with Kanji. Katakana is the script you should learn last as it won’t introduce you to any fundamentals of Japanese.

So Hiragana and Katakana are two writing systems both denoting the same thing – a set of 46 individual syllables that can be arranged in a table called the gojuuon, meaning “the 50 sounds” after the classical table that contained 50 sounds. These writing systems are represented to learners with romanized charts. The problem with the common romanized Hiragana chart is it can inadvertently teaches sounds, such as “tu” or “si”, which in fact do not exist. In particular, ra, ri, ru ,re ,ro sounds are not actually r sounds and really shouldn’t be learnt as such.  In reality, these sounds have a consonant that can be pronounced anywhere from a soft “r”, to a normal “l” to a mix form of r/l/d.

So it is import to remember that a rominalized Hiragana chart is to help you identify characters, rather than teach you sounds. How do you learn the sounds? With our video lessons.

If you would like a series of 15 video lessons to teach you the sounds of the the Hiragana syllabary as well as some Hiragana charts and flash cards then sign up below. Also a set of flash cards would come in handy too. We are got them for you. Just sign up below to get your hands on the Hiragana chart and flash cards.