The alphabet of sounds
Japanese hiragana isn't like ABC letters — each character is a whole syllable, like か 'ka' or き 'ki'. Learning these sound-bricks is the foundation everything else in Japanese is built on.
One symbol, one sound
Japanese is written with three scripts; the first you learn is hiragana. Unlike the alphabet, hiragana is a syllabary — each symbol stands for a whole syllable, almost always a consonant plus a vowel. The five vowels are a (ah), i (ee), u (oo), e (eh), o (oh), and they sound the same every time.
あ = a, い = i, う = u, え = e, お = o か = ka, き = ki, く = ku
Lab · Sound it out
- Say the five vowels in order: a, i, u, e, o.
- Add a 'k' to each: ka, ki, ku, ke, ko.
- Notice the pattern — consonant + vowel.
What you should see: Every hiragana (except ん) is a consonant joined to one of the five vowels — a predictable, regular system.