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I made a Hiragana/Katakana study sheet

Janet Merai

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10 Mar 2007
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I just wanted to share with you what I made :)

(Usually, the sheets are black, white and strain the eyes lol, I wanted to make it so I do not get distracted by colors so I ripped an image that was white and over-layed some colors with transparency XD)
 

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That's nice and all, and I applaud the effort ----and not to be a stick in the mud, but that's a really F'd up way to organize the kana.

Should be...

basic sequence...

a i u e o / voice sylables (ga gi gu ge go) / aspirated sylables (pa pi pu pe po)

(then following down...)

ka ki ku ke ko....

sa shi su se so...

etc...

then below combination syllables

unvoiced (kya, kyu, kyo) / voiced (gya, gyu, gyo) / aspirated (pya, pyu, pyo)

Just a tip for your next chart. ;)
 
It's arranged vertically from left to right.

Janet Merai said:
I thought names are for use in Katakana? O_O;

You write foreign names in katakana. You can actually write both hiragana and katakana in hiragana, but for a study chart I'd prefer to have hiragana in hiragana and katakana in katakana for consistency's sake, and to further reinforce which is which. But the way you have it isn't really wrong.
 
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I didn't mean to sound like a jerk... (I just do)... it's just not the way I'm used to seeing kana charts... Glenn has more knowledge in Japanese than I do, so, heed any of his advice over mine...

Here's another one... I seem to prefer that the sequence go, a i u e o... horizontally instead of vertically, but eh...
 

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They're basically the same, except yours is vertical right-to-left (which is more natural for me, as that's how Japanese is normally written when it's written vertically), it has the compound kana, and it's only hiragana.
 
as an absolute beginner, I am looking for ways to learn, and quickly... and i think this table is great!

however, I must ask a totally newbie question, so if its a stupid question, please forgive me!

is there a pattern in these two alphabets? i can't see any... perhaps there isn't one, but if there is could some one point it out? i find learning things is easier if there are trends or patterns to recognise.

thanks for your patience!

HS
 
No, not within them, but between them some of the shapes are either similar or are the same, so that helps cut down the task of memorization. They all came from kanji (Chinese characters), the hiragana developing from a shorthand cursive style of characters used phonetically (the Chinese characters generally have a meaning associated with them, as well as readings), and the katakana came from taking parts of characters used phonetically, so there isn't really a graphic system to the syllabaries (not counting the voicing marks, which are consistent).
 
Sorry to sound a noob but what's the differance between:
Voiced Syllables
Unvoiced Syllables
Aspirated Syllables

I can make a guess at the first two (though I would like to be sure) but have no idea what the last one is about.
 
Voiced/unvoiced/aspirated refers to the consonant, really, not the syllable as a whole.

Voiced means that you use your voice to make the sound; i.e., you can feel your vocal cords vibrating when you pronounce it. Examples are "z," "d," "b," "g," "m," and "n."

Unvoiced (also "voiceless") means that you don't use your voice to make the sound; i.e., your vocal cords don't vibrate when you pronounce it. Examples are "s," "t," "p," "k," and "h."

"Aspirated" refers to stops (also "plosives") only, and it means that when you pronounce the letter a puff of air comes out. In English, "p," "t," and "k" are like this when they are word-initial. For example, if you put your hand in front of your mouth when pronouncing "pin," "top," and "kill" you will feel a puff of air. Compare this to "spin," "stop," and "skill," where you won't feel it (or it will be much weaker). The second set is referred to as "unaspirated."

I've been told that Japanese uses little to no aspiration even when stops are word-initial, but I swear I've heard it (it doesn't happen all the time, though). When they come in the middle of words, though, they're unaspirated unless someone is shouting or really emphasizing every letter.
 
No, not within them, but between them some of the shapes are either similar or are the same, so that helps cut down the task of memorization.
As far as phoneme groupings, though there isn't reall a pattern useful to memorization, wouldn't there be a traditional pattern made in any chart that organizes phonemes by basic, voiced, unvoiced, aspirated.... followed by the combination sylables of unvoiced, voiced, & aspirated sylables?

Is phoneme the correct term for a single non-diphthong related sylable (the Japanese language has no diphthongs in theory...) so is this correct terminology?
 
A phoneme is a contrastive unit of sound in a language. Since I just wrote a post about phonemes and morae on another forum, I'll just link to it. Also, I added a minor clarification about syllables later.

Japanese writing doesn't indicate aspiration, by the way.

But I guess I should have made it clearer that the voiced kana are systematic, in that you just add the voice marker (濁点 -- dakuten) to their corresponding voiceless kana (with the exception of the "ha/ba/pa-row," of course). I was more thinking of just the different shapes, like how は doesn't really have much to do visually with ひ, even though they're part of the same row.
 
Glenn, I just want to tell you that above all, you're my hero, next maybe to Mike Cash, for your relentless dedication to the actual meat-and bones of the linguistics of Japanese... you really inspire me.
 
Well, thanks. It's always nice to hear stuff like that. :) Although lately I haven't really been able to focus as much on the linguistics side of it, which is fine because the actual "using Japanese" side of it needs work anyway. 😌
 
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