Lesson 2 · Hiragana

The S-row (and one famous exception)

Five more characters. With these you'll read すし, さけ, and しか — sushi, sake, and the bowing deer of Nara.

Mission check: menus and place-names lean heavily on the S-row. Three of today's six practice words are things you'll literally order or visit in Japan.

1 · The row

Same pattern as before: s + each vowel. But watch the second one.

Why し is "shi", not "si"

Japanese has no clean "si" sound — the tongue naturally slides to "shi". Same family you'll meet later with ち (chi, not "ti") and つ (tsu, not "tu"). It's not an exception to memorise so much as how the mouth actually moves. Say "she" — that's し. (See your glossary note on romaji being a crutch, not the truth.)

2 · Memory hooks

3 · New words (mixing in what you know)

4 · Recall — now interleaved

This quiz mixes today's S-row with Lesson 1's characters. Jumping between rows feels harder — and that difficulty is exactly what burns them into long-term memory. Answers now reshuffle their position every time.

5 · Go deeper

• Primary source: Tofugu — Learn Hiragana (illustrated mnemonics + per-character quiz for the S-row).
• The map: the S-row's place in the full hiragana chart.
• Previous: Lesson 1 — vowels & K-row.