Japanese Alphabet

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Japanese Alphabet

The Japanese has two kinds of alphabet, Hiragana and Katakana. Hiragana is used when we have no Japanese characters (Kanji) for the words or we don't remember the right Kanji. Katakana is used mainly for foreign names. The Japanese alphabet consists of 99 sounds formed with 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, and u) and 14 consonants (k, s, t, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, p, and n), as is shown in the
Hiragana chart.

Hiragana *(Japanese Alphabet)*					Katakana (Japanese Alphabet)

a	i	u	e	o	a	i	u	e	o

ka	ki	ku	ke	ko	ka	ki	ku	ke	ko

sa	shi	su	se	so	sa	shi	su	se	so

ta	chi	tsu	te	to	ta	chi	tsu	te	to

na	ni	nu	ne	no	na	ni	nu	ne	no

ha	hi	hu	he	ho	ha	hi	hu	he	ho

ma	mi	mu	me	mo	ma	mi	mu	me	mo

ya	yu	yo			ya	yu	yo

ra	ri	ru	re	ro	ra	ri	ru	re	ro

wq	wo				wq	wo

nn					nn

Dakuon (Kana with two commas on right shoulder)

Hiragana *(Japanese Alphabet)*					Katakana *(Japanese Alphabet)*

ga	gi	gu	ge	go	ga	gi	gu	ge	go

za	zi	zu	ze	zo	za	zi	zu	ze	zo

da	zdi	zdu	de	do	da	zdi	zdu	de	do

ba	bi	bu	bw	bo	ba	bi	bu	bw	bo