みなさん、こんにちは！I hope you all have had a fantastic week, and have been able to practice everything up until now. This weeks’ lesson is a little late, because my birthday was on Wednesday! I had a lot going on and had a lot of fun. I’ll do a separate post to talk more about my birthday, and what my ともだち Masaru sent to me. But, for now, let’s dig into the next lesson, shall we? Today, we will be learning the T-Column of the Hiragana chart!

So, after learning the S-Column, the K-Column, and the Vowels, we will be digging into the T-Column. Let’s have some fun and study hard together! Please note, that today there will be -two- exceptions to this column. So, today we will be learning, “ta, chi, tsu, te, and to”, or 「た、ち、つ、て、と」 respectively.

た

「た」 is the first part of the T-Column that we will learn together. 「た」 is pronounced “tah” and is simply the combination of the “t” sound and the 「あ」 kana we learned three weeks ago. This is a relatively easy kana to remember, but to better help you, picture the letter “t” and the letter “a” being written out in the kana itself! 

ち

「ち」 is the second part of the T-Column that we will learn together, and the first of the two exceptions in this column. You would think, based on the pattern of the columns before, that this would be “ti”, but it’s actually, “chi”. It sounds like the first part of the word “cheek”. To help you remember this kana, simply imagine a cheerleader doing a cheer within the kana itself.

つ

「つ」 is the third part of the T-Column that we will cover today, and is also the second exception to this column. Instead of “tu”, you say “tsu”. Think of the word, “tsunami”, and you’ll be fine remembering how to pronounce this kana. And, coincidentally enough, you can picture a tsunami wave in the kana to help you remember how it looks and reads too!

て

「て」 is the fourth part of the T-Column that we will learn today, and it will also be in the same pattern as most of the kana. “Te” is how it is pronounced, like the beginning of the word “ten”. The best way to learn how to remember this kana, is to look at your right palm. You can almost see the kana there in the lines, can’t you? Also, the coolest part about this kana is that one of the Japanese words for “hand”, is pronounced “TE”!

と

「と」 is the fifth and final part of the T-Column that we will cover this week. It is pronounced like “toe”, even though it looks like “to”. The best way to visualize this kana while trying to remember it and it’s sound is to picture a thorn being stuck in your toe! Ouch!

Homework

Homework for days!!! Well, maybe not days, but yes, there will be homework this week as well. Trust me, it’ll all come in handy, and at least it’s easy, right?

1. First, I want you to visit this website to do some Drag n’ Drop Hiragana. Focus only on the 20 kana you know, which are now the T-Column, S-Column, K-Column kana, and the vowels. You don’t have to worry about timing yourself either, you just want to be able to find the hiragana you’ve learned, and know which of those five correspond with their correct romaji sounds. (You’ll focus on the last four rows on the right.) If you do want to time yourself before doing the second piece of homework, then aim for all fifteen hiragana within 45 seconds. I think that should be a worthwhile challenge, don’t you? 😉

2. Secondly, I want you to download this pdf worksheet (print it out too if you haven’t already), and practice writing (or typing) in the corresponding romaji for the kana shown. This time, it will be kana from all four of the columns you have learned so far, so it should be a little more difficult, and twice as much fun!

3. New Homework! That’s right, it’s time to throw you for a loop and make you do something new. I’m tricksy like the hobbits in Lord of the Rings like that. 😉 But anyhow, joking aside, for your third piece of homework, I want you to go to RealKana. What you will do is check off the first four columns (the one’s we’ve covered so far), and uncheck all of the columns in the katakana tab. (Trust me, you don’t know these yet.) Now, I want you to click on the “options” tab, and choose all of the typefaces they have available. You may be asking “why” in your mind, and so I will tell you why. Just like in English (and virtually any other language in the world), there are differences in the way that things are written out, and it’s good to be able to notice those differences, and not have them confuse you. (Think of Handwriting versus Typed out things here.) You’ll start to notice these differences with the help of RealKana. After using this resource for roughly 5-10 minutes, you can move on to the final piece of homework.

4. Your final piece of homework, is also an optional one. This piece of homework is perfect for anyone who wishes to learn how to write in Japanese while learning how to read and speak it as well. Simply download this pdf and print it out, if you haven’t already. Only practice sheet numbers one through four.

That is it for this week’s lesson. I apologize again for the delay, but I hope you find today’s lesson thrilling and useful. (Probably more useful than thrilling, but one can hope I suppose. Lol) If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below! I will answer as quickly as I am able! Until next time, which I hope to be back on Wednesday again, good luck with your studies and enjoy your weekend! I look forward to seeing you next week for the next installment of this Learning Hiragana series.

がんばって！
Jessica