Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな, IPA: [çiɾaɡaꜜna, çiɾaɡana(ꜜ)]) is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana as well as kanji. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word hiragana means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", as contrasted with kanji). [1] [2] [3]
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana.Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis.
The 12-hour notation is also commonly used, by adding 午前 ("before noon") or 午後 ("after noon") before the time, e.g. 午前10時 for 10 am. [1] Japanese broadcasting and newspapers usually use a modified 12-hour notation in which midnight is 午前0時 (0 am) and noon is 午後0時 (0 pm) and, for example, "quarter past midnight" is ...
Although not a native Japanese punctuation mark, the colon is sometimes used, especially in academic writing. As in English, the colon is commonly used in Japanese to indicate time (4:05, instead of 4時5分 or 4分5秒) or for lists (日時:3月3日 4時5分 Day/time: March 3, 4:05pm).
Usually, hiragana is the default syllabary, and katakana is used in certain special cases. Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words with no kanji representation (or whose kanji is thought obscure or difficult), as well as grammatical elements such as particles and inflections . Today katakana is most commonly used to write words of ...
For example, the Japanese name for Japan, 日本, has two different pronunciations, one with three morae (Nihon) and one with four (Nippon). In the hiragana spelling, the three morae of Ni-ho-n are represented by three characters (にほん), and the four morae of Ni-p-po-n need four characters to be written out as にっぽん.
に, in hiragana, or ニ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora.The hiragana is written in three strokes, while the katakana in two. Both represent /ni/ although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is [ɲi].
A (hiragana: あ, katakana: ア) is a Japanese kana that represents the mora consisting of single vowel [a]. The hiragana character あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji 安, while the katakana ア is from the radical of kanji 阿. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the first position of the alphabet, before い.