Kana (Part II)

We've got more Hiragana characters to learn and this time we'll be covering the Hiragana starting with S and T. Don't forget to listen/study the pronunciation and check how to write them. Stroke order is very important.

S Group ( さ し す せ そ )

Notice that in this S group, the second character し has an extra letter in it. That is because this character has more of a "sh" sound than a "ss" sound. There are a few other characters that don't fit perfectly with the rest of the sounds.

T Group ( た ち つ て と )

With the T characters, there are two that are pronounced differently; ち (chi) and つ (tsu) as seen in the next table. つ (tsu) may seem hard at first but think of it like す (su) but with a T sound before it, similar to how the (ts) part of "pets" sounds with an added U sound on the end (petsu).

Z Group ( ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ )

Here is how the S characters looks with a dakuten:

D Group ( だ ぢ づ で ど )

Here is how the T characters look with a dakuten:

The more you practice these by writing and saying them aloud, the easier they will become. Most people find Hiragana easier to use than romaji, after they have been using it for a while. Soon, we will be replacing romaji with Hiragana so keep at it; Don't forget that the main use of romaji is to aid non-Japanese speakers.

Additional Notes