Hiragana Practice Exercises

Posted by Tae Kim

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.

Hiragana Table
n w r y m h n t s k    

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i
   
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u
   
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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-| jo- | 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 shocchuu

Do you have a published book

Do you have a published book ? I would totally buy it if you do.


thanks a ton, keep up the

thanks a ton, keep up the great work


Thank you so much for this. I

Thank you so much for this. I have been looking for a good japanese site that's clear, but teaches every single fundemental part of learning, and this is it.


woww! this totally worked.

woww! this totally worked. the only thing i had to do is put in an effort to remember the hiragana. i feel so accomplished. on to katakana now! lol


If I saw you in real like I

If I saw you in real like I would give you the biggest hug dude :D

Thanks so much for all your work and for making it free!!!!!!!

I am definitely donating so this can continue to be freely shared with the world xD

I'm happy right now :)


You are the one!!...have just

You are the one!!...have just started but already feel the potencial we have here. Good explanation, careful with details and direct to the point!!!
Thanks a lot for your support!

Brazilian living in Japan.


ahh..i still don't get it..is

ahh..i still don't get it..is it actually hard to tell the small つ from the big つ?because im having so much trouble -_-'' and is that method of the small and big つ the only one to use when reading hiragana? i'm having a hard time telling which is which.. 


honto ii sito desu.naka naka

honto ii sito desu.naka naka joz jozo ni narimasu kara.mo hira kana kaku koto deki masu. arigatogozai masu. yoroshiko


Awesome! すばらしい

Awesome! すばらしい


THANK YOU!!! I think this

THANK YOU!!!
I think this will help me get better at Japanese...
TwT


You are amazing! I have

You are amazing! I have always wanted to learn japanese, but never thought I would be able too. I looked all over the internet, but some how I never found you, until today! I am so excited. You are amazing! THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! :)


Também deixo meus

Também deixo meus agradecimentos. Muito interessante o site. ありがとう ございまっす


>_< mush thanks

>_< mush thanks


Thankyou :) xx

Thankyou :) xx


ONLY SAY: "THANK YOY VERY

ONLY SAY: "THANK YOY VERY MUCH"


I have a question about

I have a question about number 15 in the second exercise. I might be mistaken since I've only come this far yet, but shouldn't your 'romanization' be "se--" at the end?


The most amazing site for

The most amazing site for beginning Japanese I've come across. Very well laid out and the flash brush stroke order of hirigana and katakana is extremely helpful for learning how to properly write out the characters. Thank you so much. :)


Thank you very much. Very

Thank you very much. Very helpful!


Just wanted to say I am glad

Just wanted to say I am glad I found this website!!


"I want to particularly focus

"I want to particularly focus on correctly reading the small 「つ」 (by correctly carrying over the previous consonant)" :: did you mean "next consonant"?


Each character ( unless it

Each character ( unless it consists only of a vowel ) has a romaji consanant followed by a romaji vowel, for example, in /ku/ the consanant is 'k' followed by the vowel, 'u'. So, the next consanant is the k, which is then carried to the end of the character before it. So if it was /ga/ku/ ( which I just nade up ), and there was a 「つ」, it would read gakku. Hope that helps.


Jim Breen's WWWJDIC [1] now

Jim Breen's WWWJDIC [1] now embeds pronunciation links from JapanesePod101. A similar solution might be useful here.

[1] http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C


suggestion

now i see the answers thanks!

but can you also put the meaning of it ? so i would know when to use them


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