Japanese/Kana/Lessons/Hiragana/Lesson 4

In this lesson you are going to learn how to read and write た、ち、つ、て、と. Adding two small lines called 濁 だく点 てん dakuten, but commonly known simply as 点々 てんてん tenten, meaning "two marks", causes clear sounds to change to their voiced sound. Thus, adding the 点々 てんてん tenten marks to た、ち、つ、て、and と will produce だ、ぢ、づ、で、ど. Clear sounds た ta It's a stylized version of the lowercase letters t and a. The artist drew a curved t and neglected to close the a on either side. たこ (tako) octopus たぬき (tanuki) raccoon dog たね (tane) seed だ da だいがく (daigaku) university, college だいこん (daikon) Japanese radish だく (daku) to hug Note: In Japan, the t is crossed first, not last. ち Ja-Chi 2.oga chi It's a backwards c with a cross on top. The horizontal line is drawn first, and the backwards c is drawn in the same stroke as the vertical line of the cross. chi translates as blood, and this is a man raising his blood pressure by yelling. Your little sister's birthday is today, so you write a 5 on the card because she is 5 years old. It's like a child's attempt at writing a 5. ち (chi) blood ちいさい (chiisai) small, little ちず (chizu) map ぢ ji ちぢむ (chijimu) to shrink ちぢれげ (chijirege) curly hair はなぢ (hanaji) nosebleed つ Ja-Tsu.oga tsu Tsunami- this shows the crashing wave of a tsunami. Your ' tsu 'oup bowl fell and all the soup spilled, so now it's on it's side and empty. its a man sneezing Aaah'tsu! つえ (tsue) walking stick, magic wand つき (tsuki) moon つくえ (tsukue) desk づ zu かなづち (kanazuchi) hammer かんづめ (kanzume) canned food つづり (tsuzuri) spelling In modern Japanese language, no words start with "づ" and only few have it. て te Looks like the capital letter T. It's a broken tennis racket. てちょう (techou) notebook てつ (tetsu) iron, steel てぶくろ (tebukuro) gloves で de でんわ (denwa) telephone でる (deru) to go out, to leave でんぱ (denpa) radio wave と to It's a toe (to) with a splinter stuck in it. It resembles a toenail. When thinking of "to", think toenail. とけい (tokei) clock, watch とこや (tokoya) barber とびら (tobira) door ど do どうぐ (dougu) tool, instrument どうぶつ (doubutsu) animal どく (doku) poison Double Consonants By adding a small "っ" (tsu) in front of a syllable, it causes the subsequent consonant to double. This is called the sokuon (促音 そくおん). This kana results in a slight pause between the two consonants (a double consonant pause). There is an exception for the kana ち. Instead of having a 'cch', a ~tch is used. A couple examples are かった (katta) and しっけ (shikke).