1Lesson 1: Hiragana16 1Lesson 1ThefrststepwewilltakeonyourjourneythroughMangaLandwillbetolearnalittleabouttheJapanesewritingsystem:weareobviouslytalkingaboutthoseinsriptions!whihmanyo"youmayhave enountered# $n these "ew frst lessons you willneed to put "orth a great e%ort in order to learn thetwo syllabaries#The syllabariesThesyllabariesareessentialforthecorrectlearningoftheJapaneselanguage.Most Japanese textbooks use rmaji that is, theRomanie!"alphabettoteachthebegin#ner.$o%e&er,rmajie&entuallybecomesina!e'uate,askno%ingonlyspokenJapaneseisthe same as being illiterate. (f you %ish to learn Japanese at allle&els an!, especially, if you %ish to be able to rea! magaines orcomicbooks,yourstu!ymustinclu!elearn#ing ho% to rea! an!%rite the t%o Japanese syllabaries. This%ill be the first stepto%ar!sasoun!learningofthelanguage.)oumustgetuse!toJapanesecharacters assoonas possible, so %e %ill start %ith the%ritingbasics.(nJapanesethereisnosuchthingasanalphabet"as%ekno%it.(nstea!, therearet%osyllabaries"calle! hiragana an! katakana. * Japanese character usually e'uals at%o#lettersyllableinourlanguage+thatis%hytheyarecalle!syllabaries.",Thus,thecharacterisrea!ka.Thereisonlyone exception- the soun! n," the only consonant soun! that can goon itso%n..oth hiragana an! katakana ha&e /6 syllabic symbols, eache'ui&alent to itscorres# pon!ing symbol in the other syllabaryin pronunciation but %ritten !ifferently.0orinstance, thehiragana character an! the katakana character are both rea!chi.(t may seem strange or unnecessary, but less so %hen you consi!erthat %e ha&e a&erysimilarsystem-uppercasean!lo%ercaseletters.Trythinkingonthepurelyformal similitu!e bet%een a"an! *," or bet%een g" an! 1." 2o they look the same3Japanesehaskan4ias%ell,i!eogramstakenfrom5hinese!uringtheperio!fromthe6r! centurytothe6th century*2,%hichrepresentconceptsratherthansoun!s.Therearemanykan4i+an7 Hiraganaestimate!numberofmorethan89,999,butonly"6,999+moreorless, are usually an! fre'uently use!, out of %hich 1,:/8 areconsi!ere! common use" +l.6,an!mustcompulsorilybestu!ie!atschool.The sub4ect in this first lesson is the hiragana syllabary,un!oubte!ly the most basic an! essential to learn the basis ofthe Japanese language.1&n Japanese writing.efore %e get starte!, it;s %orth kno%ing a fe% basic aspectsofJapanese%riting.*syoumustkno%,Japanesecanbe%rittenusing the tra!itional style +&ertically an! from right to left,,butitcanalsobe%rittenthe%ay%e%rite,usingthe