ひらがな 6!? Ok, I know that you gotta be thinking to yourself, “Now Arcsis, I thought you said there where 46 hiragana. How can we be on to lesson 6? You lied to me!”
If you got that impression, you’re not alone. I felt the same way when I discovered there were more than 46.

There really are 46 basic hiragana, but then there’s variations on those. You don’t need to learn to write any new ones, only what they mean when to add a tenten or a maru. (These were what I was taught tocall the. In Kana de Manga, they’re called a dakuten & handakuten)

So what is a tenten? It’s the 2 little lines on the top right that make ka turn into ga

—>

And Maru actually means circle. So adding a maru to ha makes pa.

—>

Lets take a look at the 5 lines that change, shall we?

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I went home this weekend & while I was there I picked up my books that I inadvertently sent to my house, not my school address. Mostly it was textbooks & what not, but there were 2 fun things: Chocobo Tales (which will have it’s own post) and Kana de Manga.

Kana de manga teaches it readers hiragana & katakana at the same time, using manga drawings to illustrate the point. Each page is 1 character with Hiragana on the left, & Katakana on the right. Each page has a Japanese word using the featured letter, and in the description, there are often related words. At the bottom of each page there’s space to practiceyour penmanship

Just inside the front & back cover is a full Hiragana & Katakana chart (respectively) and 6 pages of blank graph paper for even more practice.

Full retail price is $9.99, but of you look on amazon or ebay you can find it for less. (I got mine, brand new, for $1.31 +shipping.) I’d totally recommend this to anyone looking to study Japanese. It’s a great review for those that want a refresher, but don’t want to stare a flashcards.

It gives some neat background about Japanese culture all in typical manga style.

Some samples taken from Amazon’s  online preview:

We’re up to 38 Hiragana now & making good progress!

あ い う え お a i u e o
か き く け こ ka ki ku ke ko
さ し す せ そ sa shi* su se so
た ち つ て と ta chi* tsu* te to
な に ぬ ね の na ni nu ne no
は ひ ふ へ ほ ha hi fu* he ho
ま み む め も ma mi mu me mo
や ゆ よ         ya yu yo

*Irregulars

After the rest of today’s lesson, you’ll be ready for the next writing video!
http://www.ehow.com/video_4498963_write-japanese-alphabet-hiragana-part.html

On to part 5! The last of the 46 Hiragana!
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Wow! 30 Hiragana covered already! We’re almost there! (Well, kinda as we’ll see later)

** These are irregular

I don’t really have any good tips just yet, but I did buy Kana De Manga & will have a full report on it for next week. ^_^ Until then, here’s a little preview.

Onto Lesson 4!

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かきじゅん — Kakijun, or Stroke Order is the order in which you must draw hiragana for it to be correct.

The video below shows the correct way to right Hiragana A - N.
Just remember that traditionally, Japanese is written from top-down, & read right-to-left.

If the Video doesn’t show up the permanent link is here: http://www.ehow.com/video_4498380_write-japanese-alphabet-hiragana-part.html

I also found a Java-based application that will draw individual characters by stroke & at whatever speed you like.
http://www.geocities.com/takasugishinji/japanese/hiragana_stroke.html

So far we’ve covered 20 of the 46 basic Hiragana.

あいうえお   a i u e o
かきくけこ   ka ki ku ke ko
さしすせそ   sa shi* su se so
たちつてと   ta chi* tsu* te to

** Keep in mind these are irregular, they differ from the regular “aiueo” pattern.

If you don’t have a chart handy, how do you know what order they go?
Well, in Japanese elementary school, they teach the little 1st graders (about 6-7 years old) this little phrase:

A ka sa ta na,    Ha ma ya ra wa
…which is the 1st column of the chart if you look at the whole thing.

Ready for hiragana part 3?
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In the last ひらがな post I covered the 1st 2 lines,

あいうえお
a    i  u  e  o

�

か き く  け こ
ka ki ku ke ko

If you did any research on your own (like I did) you’ll notice that sometimes the characters look different.

That’s due to 2 things:
1) Over time the “official” way to write has changed over the years. Sometimes they’re changed to be easier to write, etc.
2) Different fonts are used. Just like in English (and pretty much any language), there are a bunch of fonts that change the look of the letters.
Some main variations look like this:

This shouldn’t be too much of an issue, just something to keep an eye out for!

On to the new stuff!
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With the 3.0.1 patch on the horizon I, like many others, have opted to take up herbalism to help up-and-coming inscribers (and to make a bit of coin ourselves :D)

There’s plenty of guides out there describing what you need. This will be another one.

The word on the street is that you’ll need lots of herbs to complete this task, that much is obvious. At this point you’ll only need old world herbs because until the Wrath of the Lich King, this skill only goes to 300.

Everything in inscription requires ink, which you acquire from pigments that are milled from the different levels of herbs. Milling is a lot like prospecting in Jewelcrafting. Milling takes a stack of 5 herbs, from which it can get up to 5 pigments (but is usually closer to 2-3.) The pigments are then used to make ink to make scrolls & glyphs.

To get from 1-300 you’ll need many stacks or each pigment level of herb, beacuse milling uses so many.

As an herbalist that’s not taking up Inscription, we’ve got lots of old-school zones to revisit. Keep in mind the numbers of stacks are for 1 inscriber. There’s lots of herbs needed, and therefore lots of gold to be made!
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ひらが な (hiragana) is a set of characters used is Japanese (日本語) for everyday things. Unlike the roman based alphabet, each character is a sound not just a letter. Using hiragana as an example-

ひ   ら   が   な
hi   ra   ga    na

There are 46 basic hiragana, & they are organized for  easy memorization. The Vowels go across the top setting the columns. Each row adds a consonant sound. If this is confusing, don’t worry, it’ll work out.

First, we’ll cover the 1st 2 rows- also known as the “a” line, & “ka” line.

The 1st 5 are straight vowels- a i u e o
[Pronounced AH IE OO EH OH]

あ い う  え  お
a    i    u    e   o

Then comes the “ka” line: ka ki ku ke ko
[Pronounced KA KEE KOO KEH KO]

か き く け こ
ka ki ku ke ko

Some words using these kana:
あおい — blue
あかい — red

That’s it for today… to practice these kana, try this:
http://www.realkana.com
1) On the Hiragana tab, click the check box for the 1st 2 columns
2) On the Katakana tab, uncheck the 1st column
3) Click Practice!

Can’t see the Japanese text? Click here.
Want a little bit more background on Japanese? Click here.

Like I said in an earlier post, I’m taking my first Japanese class this semester… and I’M LOVING IT! I figured I could post here what I’ve learned so far. I’m no expert by any means, but I’m really interested in what I’m learning & want to share it.

(If you happen to be an experienced speaker & I’m incorrect or you have a better way of explaining it PLEASE let me know!)

First things first, you need to be able to see what I’m talking about. Generally most computers from English-speaking countries don’t come with these features equipped.

So, if 日本語 doesn’t look like then you’re have problems seeing the kana (Japanese characters.)

Check out this page to enable your computer the read them:
http://blog.sanriotown.com/arcsis:hellokitty.com/learning-japnaese/how-to-view-japanese-characters/
So If you’re interested too… read on!

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