Hiragana Practice Exercises
Fill in the Hiragana Chart
Though I already mentioned that there are many sites and helper programs for learning Hiragana, I figured I should put in some exercises of my own in the interest of completeness. I've removed the obsolete characters since you won't need to know them. I suggest playing around with this chart and a scrap piece of paper to test your knowledge of Hiragana.
Click on the flip link to show or hide each character.
| n | w | r | y | m | h | n | t | s | k | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ん flip |
わ flip |
ら flip |
や flip |
ま flip |
は flip |
な flip |
た flip |
さ flip |
か flip |
あ flip |
a |
| り flip |
み flip |
ひ flip |
に flip |
ち flip |
し flip |
き flip |
い flip |
i | |||
| る flip |
ゆ flip |
む flip |
ふ flip |
ぬ flip |
つ flip |
す flip |
く flip |
う flip |
u | ||
| れ flip |
め flip |
へ flip |
ね flip |
て flip |
せ flip |
け flip |
え flip |
e | |||
| を flip |
ろ flip |
よ flip |
も flip |
ほ flip |
の flip |
と flip |
そ flip |
こ flip |
お flip |
o |
Hiragana Writing Practice
In this section, we will practice writing some words in Hiragana. This is the only part of this guide where we will be using the English alphabet to represent Japanese sounds. I've added bars between each letter to prevent the ambiguities that is caused by romaji such as "un | yo" vs "u | nyo". Don't get too caught up in the romaji spellings. Remember, the whole point is to test your aural memory with Hiragana. I hope to replace this with sound in the future to remove the use of romaji altogether.
Hiragana Writing Exercise 1
Sample: ta | be | mo | no = たべもの
| 1. ku | ru | ma | = | くるま |
| 2. a | shi | ta | = | あした |
| 3. ko | ku | se | ki | = | こくせき |
| 4. o | su | shi | = | おすし |
| 5. ta | be | ru | = | たべる |
| 6. wa | ka | ra | na | i | = | わからない |
| 7. sa | zu | ke | ru | = | さずける |
| 8. ri | ku | tsu | = | りくつ |
| 9. ta | chi | yo | mi | = | たちよみ |
| 10. mo | no | ma | ne | = | ものまね |
| 11. hi | ga | e | ri | = | ひがえり |
| 12. pon | zu | = | ぽんず |
| 13. hi | ru | me | shi | = | ひるめし |
| 14. re | ki | shi | = | れきし |
| 15. fu | yu | ka | i | = | ふゆかい |
More Hiragana Writing Practice
Now we're going to move on to practice writing Hiragana with the small 「や」、「ゆ」、「よ」 、and the long vowel sound. For the purpose of this exercise, I will denote the long vowel sound as "-" and leave you to figure out which Hiragana to use based on the letter preceding it.
Hiragana Writing Exercise 2
Sample: jyu | gyo- = じゅぎょう
| 1. nu | ru | i | o | cha | = | ぬるいおちゃ |
| 2. kyu- | kyo | ku | = | きゅうきょく |
| 3. un | yo-| jyo- | ho- | = | うんようじょうほう |
| 4. byo- | do- | = | びょうどう |
| 5. jyo- | to- | shu | dan | = | じょうとうしゅだん |
| 6. gyu- | nyu- | = | ぎゅうにゅう |
| 7. sho- | rya | ku | = | しょうりゃく |
| 8. hya | ku | nen | ha | ya | i | = | ひゃくねんはやい |
| 9. so | tsu | gyo- | shi | ki | = | そつぎょうしき |
| 10. to- | nyo- | byo- | = | とうにょうびょう |
| 11. mu | ryo- | = | むりょう |
| 12. myo- | ji | = | みょうじ |
| 13. o | ka- | san | = | おかあさん |
| 14. ro- | nin | = | ろうにん |
| 15. ryu- | ga | ku | se | i | = | りゅうがくせい |
Hiragana Reading Practice
Now let's practice reading some Hiragana. I want to particularly focus on correctly reading the small 「つ」. Remember to not get too caught up in the unavoidable inconsistencies of romaji. The point is to check whether you can figure out how it's supposed to sound in your mind.
Hiragana Reading Exercise
Sample: とった = totta
| 1. きゃっかんてき | = | kyakkanteki |
| 2. はっぴょうけっか | = | happyoukekka |
| 3. ちょっかん | = | chokkan |
| 4. ひっし | = | hisshi |
| 5. ぜったい | = | zettai |
| 6. けっちゃく | = | kecchaku |
| 7. しっぱい | = | shippai |
| 8. ちゅうとはんぱ | = | chuutohanpa |
| 9. やっかい | = | yakkai |
| 10. しょっちゅう | = | shotchuu |

Thank you for this helpful
Thank you for this helpful review! Although, where can we find the meaning for the words?
Thank you but I'm a little
Thank you but I'm a little confuse on some of the character. On the second exercise #3 and 5, for the same character why is it spell jo in 3 and jyo in 5. Also for the reading such as しょっちゅう, why is it read as shocchuu instead of shotchuu. I remember in your video you say since the chi is rooted in the t, it carry on letter should be t.
in Japanese you don't have
in Japanese you don't have double consonant so shocchuu translates to しょっちゅう The small tsu indicates that you insert small pause before you speak the following konsonant.
I don't know if you have double konsonant tt pp and so on in English (not a native speaker here) but as for German this fits very well. The tt indicates a more 'sharp' sound of t. So a small tsu is never spoken (just thought, or skipped) and by this little pause you get the sound of a sharper following consonant.
Thanks, that's the problem
Thanks, that's the problem with using romaji.
This is great although i wish
This is great although i wish there was a english translation for the words!
You should install the
You should install the Firefox Rikaichan add-on. Then you just hover over the beginning of the word for the English translation. It's a good add-on if you're learning Japanese. However it also may make you a bit lazy when reading kanji and such.
Good luck!
the sight would be helpfull
the sight would be helpfull except that all i see are boxes:/ whats up with that??
Instructions for installing
Instructions for installing Japanese support is in the resou.rces link on top
Thnak you so much! i ALWAYS
Thnak you so much! i ALWAYS WANTED TO LEARN JAPANESE AND THIS IS VERY HELPFUL!
Arigatou gozaimasu!
Arigatou gozaimasu! Everything I know about Japanese I've learned by myself (not that it's much, but I can understand simple dialogues and read/write kanas), but I've been out of practice and I wanted to come back to it, so that's really helpful!
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