Japanese alphabet

Vocabulary:
shima: island
michi: road, street

Before we go any further, we need to define what Japanese words are made of. Just like English, Japanese words are built from a defined alphabet of characters. Because we have not yet delved into Japanese characters, I am going to show the Japanese alphabet in Romanji form. Romanji is a representation of the Japanese characters written out phonetically, and is how we have been writing our Japanese words so far. We will add the actual Japanese characters in a future lesson. Here is the table of the Japanese Alphabet in Romanji form:

Remember that Japanese is most often read from top to bottom and then from right to left. So, when studying the table, start with 'a' then move on to 'i','u','e','o', and then move up and to the left to 'ka','ki','ku' and so forth. Just remember to follow the arrows and you should have no problem.

To add some life to the alphabet let's break up today's vocabulary words to show the individual character blocks. Se if you can find these blocks in the alphabet table above.

shima = shi-ma
michi = mi-chi

now let's do a longer word:

Hiroshima = Hi-ro-shi-ma

A great way to remember the alphabet is to repeat it over and over again. Because it rhymes, it does not take long to learn. Just repeat "a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko" and so forth. Remember the pronunciation guide in a previous lesson to make sure you are pronouncing these characters correctly.

In a future lesson, we will add simple extensions to the Japanese alphabet to give us more power with vocabulary.