There are 46 hiragana characters used in modern Japanese. With punctuation marks and variations in size, they can be used to express all modern Japanese sounds and words. For the purposes of this article, hiragana are analogous to the lower-case alphabet in English.
Vowel Set
First, it's important to understand the 5 vowel sounds used in Japanese, which are transcribed in the Roman alphabet (romaji) as a, i, u, e, and o. The a is the ah of "Ah ha!" The i is pronounced exactly the same as the English letter E. The u is ooh, like "Ooh, that's cool." The e is pronounced almost exactly the same as the letter A. And o is the same as the letter O, or the oh of "Oh, I didn't know that."
The k-Set
The first main difference between hiragana and the alphabet, though, is that most hiragana have both a consonant and vowel sound. The next set of hiragana are ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko. Remembering that there are essentially only 5 vowel sounds in Japanese, these next 5 hiragana are simply the combinations of the k consonant sound and the above-described vowel sounds. Therefore ki, for example, is pronounced the same as the word "key" and ke is pronounced just like the letter K.
The s-Set
Hiragana continues in groups of 5: sa, shi, su, se, and so. This row is a combination of the s consonant sound and the 5 vowels, with the exception of shi. The shi is pronounced just like the English pronoun "she."
The t-Set
The next 5 hiragana are ta, chi, tsu, te, and to. The chi is pronounced like "cheap" without the final p consonant. The tsu is the t+s+vowel sound of "That soon," said quickly, like one word.
The n-Set, h-Set, and m-Set
The next 5 hiragana are na, ni, nu, ne, and no, with no pronunciation exceptions. Next comes ha, hi, fu, he and ho. The fu is slightly exceptional because there is only a slight and subtle consonant sound (like either h or f) before the vowel sound. The next row is ma, mi, mu, me and mo, with no exceptions.
The y-Set
The next set has only 3 hiragana: ya, yu, and yo. Any potential "yi" or "ye" sounds are often taken care of with i or e, as yi and ye sounds are now archaic in Japanese.
The r-Set
Next comes ra, ri, ru, re, and ro. The r consonant is decidedly the choice for writing the hiragana in romaji, but the actual sound is halfway between an English "l" and "r."
The Final 3
Last come 3 oddballs: wa, wo, and n. The wa is the "wa" of "waffle." The wo is best transcribed with the w because it is a different character than o, though the pronunciation of both the o and wo hiragana is the same. The n is unique in that it is the only hiragana with a consonant unaccompanied by a vowel. It is pronounced like an N is used in English. For example, kin (meaning gold or metal) is pronounced like the English "keen."
Hiragana are best understood in chart form. An easy-to-understand hiragana chart is available on Japanorama.com. After understanding the basic hiragana, more sounds and combinations used in Japanese writing can be understood. Though writing in Japanese only gets more complicated from here, the pronunciation is straightforward and consistent, and much can be done in Japanese with an understanding of romaji.
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