What is hiragana?
Q: What is hiragana?
A: Hiragana is a part of the Japanese writing system. It is a syllabary, which means that each hiragana character stands for a syllable. It is used for the little words that make up the grammar and also for the endings of some words.
Q: How does it differ from an alphabet like English?
A: In an alphabet like English, most of the letters stand for one bit of sound (phoneme). However, in hiragana each character stands for a syllable instead.
Q: Who wrote in hiragana traditionally?
A: Traditionally, women wrote in hiragana while men wrote in kanji. Murasaki Shikibu was one example who wrote books, poems and songs using hiragana. Later Buddhist clerics such as Rennyo (d. 1498) also began to write religious messages using hiragana so more people could read them.
Q: Is it easy to learn?
A: The two kana systems (hiragana and katakana) are quite easy to learn compared to kanji which takes years of practice - usually you can learn both kanas in two weeks or less!
Q: Are there any special uses for hiragana?
A: Sometimes whole texts may be written in hiragama to make them easier to read - this is often used with books aimed at young children or students starting out learning Japanese, or when writing lyrics underneath music where it's important to show how they fit with the music. Rare or strange kanji may also have furigama characters above them which are written in hirgana and show how they should be pronounced.
Q: Can you give an example of how grammatical endings are used with Hirgana?
A: Yes! For example, if we take the verb “to eat” which is 食べる (taberu), then the main part of this word “eat” (pronounced “ta”) would be written as kanji 食 while the other two syllables “be-ru” would be written as hirgana べる . To say "I ate" or "you ate", etc., you would say tabemashita which would be written 食べました with "be-ma-shi-ta" being written as Hirgana べました。
