Lesson 6 · Hiragana

は ひ ふ へ ほ

The last exception lives here — and two of these characters lead a double life as grammar.

ふ is fu, not hu: the fourth and final character that does not say what the grid predicts. And は and へ both change their sound when they are used as particles, which is the first place reading and grammar touch.

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Warm up

Twenty-five so far.

は — ha

  • は

    ha

    An uppercase H plus a lowercase a. What does that spell? Ha!

     Tofugu’s mnemonic illustration for は

H before あ gives は. Like the “ha” in ha ha.

Chopsticks

はし — chopsticks. The same word also means bridge, with a different pitch.

ひ — hi

  • ひ

    hi

    He has a big nose. See the nose? Now say it out loud.

     Tofugu’s mnemonic illustration for ひ

H before い gives ひ. Like the English pronoun he, or the “he” in heat.

Person

ひと — a person. One of the most common nouns in the language.

ふ — fu

  • ふ

    fu

    Someone dancing like a fool — and that thing around their neck is a hula hoop, which is why they are twisting so hard.

     Tofugu’s mnemonic illustration for ふ

The last exception. The sound sits halfway between f and h — a softly blown foo, sometimes closer to hoo. Written fu, never hu.

Counting things

ふたつ — two things. With ひとつ (one thing) you can order by pointing and counting.

へ — he

  • へ

    he

    Mount Saint Helens. Not totally flat, but pretty squat looking.

     Tofugu’s mnemonic illustration for へ

H before え gives へ. Like the “he” in help. The simplest shape in the whole syllabary — two strokes that barely bend.

Bad at it

へた — unskilled, bad at something. You will hear people say it about themselves constantly.

ほ — ho

  • ほ

    ho

    The line on the left is a chimney. On the right is a four-armed, headless Santa, uttering ho ho ho out of his neck.

     Tofugu’s mnemonic illustration for ほ

H before お gives ほ. Like the “ho” in hoe — or hot, in British English.

は or ほ

One stroke apart, and the pair most likely to catch you out. ほ has the extra horizontal near the top; は does not.

Star

ほし — a star.

The row together

Pair them up.

Read them cold

No options.

All thirty

Two thirds of the syllabary.

Words

Thirty characters buys a great deal.

Spell every word

Worth knowing

は is said “wa” when it is a particle. As a character it is ha; as the marker that says what a sentence is about, the same shape is pronounced wa. So ねこは… is read “neko wa”, not “neko ha”. Nothing about the writing tells you — you learn it from position.

へ is said “e” when it is a particle too, marking direction: えきへ — “to the station” — reads “eki e”. Two characters, two double lives, and both are everywhere.

That is also the answer to a question you might have had since lesson one: hiragana is not quite a phonetic alphabet. It is very nearly one, with four exception characters and two particles that change their reading. That is the whole of the irregularity.

ひとつ, ふたつ — one thing, two things. Point at what you want, say the number, and you have ordered.