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Topic: Hiragana


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In the News (Fri 10 Jul 09)

  
  Japanese Hiragana
Hiragana were originally called onnade or 'women's hand' as were used mainly by women - men wrote in kanji and katakana.
Hiragana are also widely used in materials for children, textbooks, animation and comic books, to write Japanese words which are not normally written with kanji, such as adverbs and some nouns and adjectives, or for words whose kanji are obscure or obselete.
Hiragana are sometimes used to write words which would normally written with katakana to make them appear more "feminine", particularly in comic books and cartoons for young girls.
www.omniglot.com /writing/japanese_hiragana.htm   (425 words)

  
 Hiragana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora.
Hiragana, with its flowing style, was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents.
In modern times, hiragana has become preferred over katakana, which is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.
www.sciencedaily.com /encyclopedia/hiragana   (1475 words)

  
 Hiragana Games
Hiragana are the Japanese symbols used for all the grammar and words that can't be written in katakana or Chinese symbols.
Unlike katakana, you need to be able to speak a bit of Japanese before learning hiragana (otherwise you won't know what the words mean!), but once you have, try these games!
Hiragana Game 1 - Hiragana Game 2 - Hiragana Game 3 - Hiragana Game 4
www.genkienglish.net /genkijapan/hiragana1.htm   (304 words)

  
 Hiragana
Hiragana and katakana each consist of 46 signs which originally were kanji but were strongly simplified over the centuries.
Even though one can theoretically write the whole language in hiragana, it is usually used only for grammatical endings of verbs, nouns, and adjectives, as well as for particles, and several other original Japanese words (in contrast to loan words that are written in katakana) which are not written in kanji.
Kana Pict-O-Graphix: Mnemonics for Japanese Hiragana and Katakana
www.japan-guide.com /e/e2047.html   (300 words)

  
 Hiragana symbols: The history and use of Japanese hiragana characters with useful hiragana-related links.
Hiragana symbols are also used as particles (single character "words") to show the relationship between other words in a sentence.
Hiragana characters are often written next to unusual kanji characters to show their pronunciation in the same way that we have added roman characters to the sentence above.
Hiragana was often used by women, who were denied the education in Chinese classics afforded to men and, as a result, Hiragana came to be known as onnade (or women's hand).
www.japanese-name-translation.com /site/hiragana_symbols.html   (649 words)

  
 Hiragana at opensource encyclopedia   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Hiragana (平仮名, literally "flat/plain kana") are a Japanese syllabary, one of four Japanese writing systems (the others are katakana, kanji and rōmaji).
Each hiragana represents one syllable (technically, one mora), and is either a vowel on its own (such as a あ), a consonsant followed by a vowel (such as ka か), or ん, which sounds like the English "m" or "n".
Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used exclusively for their pronunciations, a practice which started in the 5th century CE.
www.wiki.tatet.com /Hiragana.html   (879 words)

  
 Hiragana: Facts and details from Encyclopedia Topic   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Kana is a general term for two types of syllabic japanese script: hiragana () and katakana ()....
Hiragana are the basis for collation collation quick summary:
All combinations of hiragana with dakuten and handakuten used in modern Japanese are available as precomposed characters, EHandler: no quick summary.
www.absoluteastronomy.com /encyclopedia/h/hi/hiragana.htm   (2422 words)

  
 kana chart (kanachart.com) - with hiragana, katakana, and kanji japanese symbols or characters
hiragana and katakana alphabets are arranged by their starting letter; just click on the letter you want.
this category is used in both hiragana and katakana sections.
kc says: the hiragana alphabet is the primary native japanese alphabet, it can be used to phonetically write all native japanese words.
www.kanachart.com /cgi-bin/index.pl?hiragana&a&1   (163 words)

  
 J-List side blog: Japanese language overview: Hiragana (the wavy kind)
Hiragana started out back in the sixth century (or thereabouts), supposedly created by Murasaki Shikibu, writer of Genji Monogatari, the first modern novel ever written, and was used for centuries as by women; the more boxy, bold katakana, with kana that look violent, like crossed swords, were used by men.
Today, hiragana is used generally for writing Japanese words (including grammatical particles, etc.), and katakana is used for foreign loan words (ice cream = aisu kuriimu, etc.), for writing foreigner's names, and so on.
The following three hiragana are the "odd men out." The first is just "wa." The second, "wo" (sometimes written in romaji as "o" although I dislike this since it causes confusion with the other kana "o") is only used as a grammatical particle (it denotes the object of a sentence).
www.peterpayne.net /2003/03/japanese-language-overview-hiragana.html   (1575 words)

  
 Untitled Document
Hiragana is curvilinear and is used to write certain Japanese words, such as particles (wa, ga, ni), conjunctions, certain nouns and so on.
Hiragana suffixes are also used with kanji stems to form verbs and adjectives.
They are an essential part of the Japanese written language and, seeing as there's only 46 basic hiragana, most written with only two or three strokes, it's a good idea to get them under your belt before embarking on the kanji.
www.kanjisite.com /html/start/kana/hiragana01.html   (77 words)

  
 Japanese Learning Made Easy: Your First Encounter with Hiragana
Hiragana are the most common and simple characters in written Japanese.
I recommend becoming familiar with hiragana before you begin learning words/phrases/expressions/etc. I have tried to explain to many a beginning Japanese language student that learning the romanized (romaji) spelling of Japanese words is detrimental to your overall progress, but, alas, not many of them were willing to give up the roman alphabet.
Hiragana Screen Saver Shows random hiragana as a screen saver for the windows desktop.
misaiato.blogspot.com /2004/12/your-first-encounter-with-hiragana.html   (1160 words)

  
 Japanese Writing
I found hiragana more difficult to master than katakana because a) the characters are sometimes very close in appearance to one another, and more importantly b) the loops and curves are difficult to write correctly and smoothly without a confident hand.
Note that the particle wa is the same as the hiragana ha, eis the same as the hiragana he, and the particle o is different from the normal hiragana o.
Hiragana is the first writing system taught to Japanese children, so low-level children's books are written exclusively in hiragana, and even in more advanced level texts, difficult kanji will have the pronunciation written above in hiragana.
members.aol.com /writejapan   (958 words)

  
 Japanese kanji, hiragana, katakana, Japanese alphabets
Hiragana is used to represent native Japanese words.
It is no coincidence that there are the same number of characters in both the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets as they both represent exactly the same sounds (some of them even look quite similar).
Katakana is used to represent foreign words whereas Hiragana is used to represent native Japanese words.
www.futureimplications.com /kanji_katakana_hiragana/kanji.htm   (321 words)

  
 Hiragana
Hiragana developed from man'yōgana, Chinese characters used exclusively for their pronunciations, a practice which started in the 5th century.
Literature was written using these characters, and as the forms of the man'yōgana became simplified (flattened), the hiragana came in to existence, used mainly by women.
Hiragana with its flowing style came to be used for unofficial writing such as personal letters while Katakana and Chinese were used for official documents.
lycos.cs.cmu.edu /info/hiragana.html   (405 words)

  
 JapanCorner - The Benihana Guide to Japan
Hiragana is a phonetically based alphabet which, like its counterpart, katakana, was derived from abbreviated forms of Chinese Characters (kanji).
Sometime during the 9th century, hiragana emerged which became the written language of the gentry enabling the creation of Japanese literature.
Hiragana is also used to write other parts of speech such as articles, particles, conjunctions, etc. Some examples of this are:
www.japancorner.com /hiragana.asp   (371 words)

  
 learn hiragana. Japanese kana, kanji etc.
Hiragana can also be used for adverbs and names for animals and plants.
Hiragana is used for changing meanings of kanji by adding a hiragana character after the kanji.
Hiragana can be used to express and write all Japanese words without the use of kanji since hiragana is like an alphabet.
www.euroasiasoftware.com /english/japanese/learn/hiraganatable.htm   (220 words)

  
 Japanese Tattoo Translations, Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana.
Hiragana is one of 3 different Japanese script.
Hiragana is a more rounded and circular symbol and often used to write the grammatical parts of sentences where the use of Kanji is not appropriate.
Hiragana is also used for everyday print, such as newspapers and magazines.
www.shetattoos.com /hiragana_translations.cfm   (219 words)

  
 Grammar: Learn Hiragana
Yes, but before you run for the aspirin, know that hiragana is perhaps the most useful and it can be mastered (to a slow, but readable degree) in less than 2 weeks!
Once you learn Hiragana, you will notice how similar Katakana is. The third 'alphabet' isn't an alphabet at all.
The name sounds impossible to learn, but it is simply reading the Hiragana that makes the character.
www.thejapanesepage.com /hiragana.htm   (762 words)

  
 Hiragana Translator
Hiragana is more rounded and circular symbols and often used to write the grammatical parts of sentences in which the allocation of Kanji is not appropriate.
Unlike Kanji, Hiragana was developed by Japanese people, and today, all the Japanese Children learn Hiragana to write first and then step up to Kanji characters as they grow.
Hiragana is basically phonetic alphabet which means a Hiragana symbol is created by the sound of characters.
www.dsfy.com /tattoo_design/hiragana/index.htm   (1225 words)

  
 Hiragana and Katakana 1.0.7 – Mac OS X – VersionTracker
Hiragana and Katakana is an application to help people to learn the Japanese syllabary character sets.
Both the hiragana and katakana character sets are included with 104 items each.
Also as a part of this application there are tests for your knowledge in the form of a series of typed and multichoice questions.
www.versiontracker.com /dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12935   (262 words)

  
 hiragana   (Site not responding. Last check: )
You will need to learn all of the hiragana characters by the end of Core Module 1 because from Core Module 2, everything will be written in hiragana.
Here is a fun Hiragana Generator that will create hiragana when you type in the alphabetical letters.
Hiragana Chart with stroke order and.au sound files Kidsweb also has katakana and kanji.
www.ccet.ua.edu /nihongoweb/hiragana.htm   (604 words)

  
 Otaku Oracle [O2] // The Perfect Place for Us Otaku   (Site not responding. Last check: )
There are very few people in Japanese that know all of the Kanji in the Japanese language.
This is little hiragana printed near the kanji to help people read it if they do not know what the kanji stands for.
Hiragana is also used for verb endings, particles.
www.geocities.com /sykick2314/japanese_hiragana.html   (126 words)

  
 ChipChat Japanese Training   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Japanese kana are comprised of "hiragana" and "katakana".
Hiragana are used for Japanese words and grammatical parts of the language, such as verb endings for past or present tense.
Hiragana script is "fluid" and "rounded", similar to cursive writing.
www.chipchat.com /NihonGo   (397 words)

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