ひらがな / HIRAGANA CLUB
Every story starts
with one character.
Never read Japanese before? You’re in the right place.
Meet the sounds first. Then try your first manga reading.
Five shapes. Five sounds.
Hiragana is a Japanese writing system. Each character represents a sound. Romaji writes that sound using English letters: あ → a. These are sounds, not English letter names.
Listen, say the sound out loud, then move to the next character. English comparisons are approximate.
Character 1 of 5
02 / READ THE MOMENTSTARTER PANEL
Your first character: あ. It makes the sound “ah”.
あ
KANA / 001LEARN IT FIRST
あ → a
Say “ah”, like the a in “father”. Keep it short. In romaji, type a.
Try the sound you just learned
Write the sound in English letters. It’s okay to look again.
Practice the five sounds above, then try あ.
KEEP THIS IN YOUR CORNER
Your hiragana cheat sheet
Read left to right within each row. を is usually pronounced “o” as a particle. Small っ doubles the next consonant; ゃ, ゅ, ょ combine with the preceding character. Manga also uses katakana and kanji—hiragana is your starting point.