Lesson One: Hiragana, TenTen, Maru, Long Vowels, Combo Hiragana, Little Tsu, and Romaji

Okay, so Japanese has 46 basic letters and sounds. These are referred to as "hiragana".

Basically, these are the characters that make up Japanese words.

Here is a link to a list of hiragana with other stuff on it as well. You will have to learn all of the basic hiragana to go on to the next part. Stick to the right side. Ignore the Combo Hiragana and Dakuten for now.

Hiragana Chart: http://www.textfugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/hiragana-chart-textfugu-2.pdf

Pronunciation: http://www.saiga-jp.com/pronunciation_voice.html - Listen to the basic hiragana first, then move on as the lesson progresses.

Writing: http://japanese.about.com/library/blhira.htm (Lessons 3 to 12; Stroke order is important!)

Hiragana worksheets: http://genkienglish.net/genkijapan/hiraganaworksheets.htm - Print them all out and practice!

After you remember all of the basic hiragana (Reading, Writing, and Speaking! Stroke order is also important!), move on to the next section.

In this section, I will talk about "tenten" and "maru".

So... tentens and marus is a way of extending the sound of the 46 hiragana sounds.

Not all hiragana have tentens and marus.

The exceptions to tentens and marus:

あいうえお
なにぬねの
まみぬめも
やゆよ
らりるれろ
わ

Marus are a special case. Only the は row/column has the marus. They also have the tentens.

Example:

は　ば　ぱ

 HA        BA        PA

Now how do we represent these tentens and marus? The perfect example is the は row/column.

They consist of two dashes (tentens) and a small circle (maru).

Example:

は (Regular)　ば (TenTen)　ぱ (Maru)
 HA                                         BA                                       PA

After you have mastered that, move to the next section.

Long vowels time...

For example, ohayou. It is spelled, in hiragana, as おはよう. Ohayou means Good Morning in Japanese. Each character has a specific sound. How do we represent this with English letters? We represent it with a system called "romaji", or the romanization of Japanese words. In romaji, it is spelled out as:

お - O
は - Ha
よ - Yo
う - U

Unfortuantly, romaji is not very standardized yet.

You have some people spelling ohayou as:

Ohayoo
Ohayō
Ohayou

In this blog, I will be using the 2nd and 3rd style, because I think it is more effective for the learner as it represents all of the characters. The other style hides the long vowel sounds (mainly replacing ou with oo... Some might get confused and spell おはよう as おはよお!). The long O sound can be represented as OU or Ō

Example of words with long vowels:

Long A - おばあさん - obaasan / obāsan
Long I - いいえ - iie / īe
Long U - ぎゅうにゅう - gyuunyuu / gyūnyū
Long E - ええ - ee / ē
Long O - とうきょう - toukyou / tōkyō

Now, you may be asking yourself: "Can I just use romaji for everything?". The answer is NO. Romaji is rarely, if ever, used in Japan. Sure, you can use it to help you with pronunciation, but only in the beginning. Stick with hiragana.

Now, you may have noticed the smaller hiragana characters.

(とうきょう vs とうきよう)
  toukyou  vs  toukiyou
Obviously, toukyou is the correct spelling for, well, Tokyo.

The kyo (きょ) is a combination of き and よ.

These are called combo hiragana. Not all hiragana can be combined. Only the hiragana containing "i" may be combined with ya, yu, and yo... So, kya (きゃ), kyu (きゅ), kyo (きょ), rya (りゃ), ryu (りゅ), ryo (りょ), gya (ぎゃ), gyu (ぎゅ), gyo (ぎょ). Etc, etc.

When they are combined, the first hiragana, in this case "ki", looses its "i" romaji and sound. It still sounds similar to ki though. So pronounce the letter k. Then pronounce the yo. Together, Kyo. Use the pronunciation link I gave you. http://www.saiga-jp.com/pronunciation_voice.html and find きょ.

Next section, little tsu.

The little tsu (っ vs つ) is used to repeat the first letter of the next character. For example, datte. It is spelled as "だって". Easy enough to understand, right? Good.

Sorry if this guide is a bit vague, but I'm just a high school student. I recently passed the first year Japanese class offered (2011-2012 school year).

Next lesson will be some words, and grammar patterns.

Lesson Zero: History of the Japanese Language

I'm a bad at explaining stuff, so just read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language#History