Lesson 7 · Hiragana — the finish line

Y · R · W rows & ん

The last eleven characters. Clear these and you can read every basic hiragana — including にほん (Japan), えん (yen), and おんせん (hot spring).

Mission check: this lesson hands you よやく (reservation), えん (yen), くるま (car), and おんせん — booking, paying, getting around, soaking. The trip, basically.

1 · The Y-row — only three

Japanese has no "yi" or "ye", so this row is just three: ya, yu, yo.

2 · The R-row — five (a soft R, almost an L)

Japanese R is light — a quick tap, halfway to an L. Don't roll it.

Watch-alike: る (ru) vs ろ (ro)

Same trick as め/ぬ: る ends in a loop, ろ just stops. Loop = ru.

3 · The W-row & ん — three to go

を is pronounced just "o" and shows up only as a grammar particle (it marks the object of a verb) — you'll never see it inside a normal word. ん is the only solo consonant: a full beat of "n" that can't start a word but ends loads of them (えん, にほん).

4 · The victory-lap words

5 · The final recall

All eleven new characters, plus the る/ろ and わ/れ look-alikes baked in.

6 · 🎉 You can read all of hiragana

Forty-six characters, back in your head. From here, three short add-ons make hiragana complete for reading anything:

• Dakuten — the little ゛/゜ marks that turn k→g, s→z, t→d, h→b/p. (みず water, でんわ phone, ありがとう thank you.)
• Combos & small kana — きょ, the small っ pause. (とうきょう Tokyo, きっぷ ticket.)
• Long vowels — why ひこうき stretches.

We'll fold those in as one quick lesson — then straight to katakana, which flies because the sound-grid is the exact same one you just mastered.

7 · Go deeper

• Primary source: Tofugu — Learn Hiragana (full quiz to test all 46 at once).
• The map (now fully lit): full hiragana chart.
• Previous: Lesson 6 — M-row.