Japanese is a fascinating language with three different writing systems: hiragana, katakana and kanji. In this section, we'll focus on hiragana, which is the most basic writing system in Japanese. It is the first one that students of Japanese usually learn and is used for writing native Japanese words, grammatical particles, and words that don't have a corresponding kanji.
To begin with, it's important to understand that hiragana is a syllabic alphabet, which means that each character represents a syllable. This is different from English, where each letter represents a sound. That said, let's dive into hiragana family vocabulary.
Family in Japanese
In Japanese, the word for family is 'かぞく' (kazoku). Here are some useful family-related words you can learn in hiragana:
- おとうさん (otousan) - Father
- おかあさん (okaasan) - Mother
- おにいさん (oniisan) - Elder brother
- おねえさん (oneesan) - Big sister
- おとうと (otouto) - Younger brother
- いもうと (imouto) - Younger sister
- おじいさん (ojiisan) - Grandfather
- おばあさん (obaasan) - Grandmother
Note that the words for brother and sister depend on your own age. If you are older than your brother or sister, you would use 'おとうと' or 'いもうと'. If you're younger, you'd use 'おにいさん' or 'おねえさん'.
Using hiragana in practice
Now that you know some useful words, let's see how they can be used in sentences. For example:
わたしのおとうさんはせんせいです。(Watashi no otousan wa sensei desu.) - My father is a teacher.
This sentence uses hiragana for 'I' (わたし), 'father' (おとうさん) and 'teacher' (せんせい), in addition to the particles 'の' (of) and 'は' (is).
>おねえさんのなまえはなんですか。(Oneesan no namae wa nan desu ka?) - What is your older sister's name?
Here, we use hiragana for 'big sister' (おねえさん), 'name' (なまえ) and the question 'what is it?' (なんですか), in addition to the particles 'の' and 'は'.
As you can see, hiragana is a vital part of Japanese and learning to use it correctly can open many doors to understanding and communicating effectively. We hope this chapter has given you a good introduction to hiragana and Japanese family vocabulary. Keep practicing and you'll see progress in no time!
