Lesson 1 · Hiragana

The five vowels & the K-row

Ten characters. By the end you'll read real Japanese words off the page — including えき, the word you'll see on every train platform in Japan.

Mission check: you're rebuilding reading for a trip to Japan. Hiragana is the foundation — once these ten "click" again, the rest of the grid falls fast.

1 · The whole system in one idea

Japanese isn't spelled letter-by-letter. It's built from mora — little sound-beats, almost always one kana each. And the beats follow a grid: five vowels, then each consonant simply rides on top of them. Learn the vowels and you've learned the skeleton of all 46.

Pronounce them pure and short, like Spanish or Italian: a as in "father", i as in "machine", u as in "flute" (lips relaxed, not rounded), e as in "bed", o as in "or".

2 · The K-row — vowels with a "k" in front

Now add a consonant. The K-row is just k + each vowel: ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. Same five vowel sounds you just learned.

3 · Memory hooks

The fastest-proven way to lock kana in is image mnemonics — turn each squiggle into a picture whose name carries the sound. A few quick ones to get you started (the full illustrated set is in the primary source below):

4 · Your first real words

You can now read these — sound out each mora, then say it fast. The starred one is pure travel gold:

5 · Now recall them (the part that sticks)

Reading the cards above is the easy half. Retrieval — pulling the sound out of memory with no list in front of you — is what builds lasting recall. Tap the sound for each character. Miss one and it comes back around.

6 · Go deeper

• Primary source (recommended read): Tofugu — Learn Hiragana: The Ultimate Guide. It has a full illustrated mnemonic and a built-in quiz for every character.
• The map: see where today's ten sit in the full hiragana chart (your 46-character reference).
• Terms: mora, kana, romaji are defined in your glossary.