I have officially learned each and every letter in hiragana, but I am having trouble memorizing the additional sounds. It seems easy because you already know it’s original symbol and therefore it’s second vowel, but I can’t seem to memorize the first letter.
It’s way harder than just memorizing a new set of symbols. Has anyone got any tips for that?
3 comments
What additional sounds are you talking about? I can’t really make out what you’re referring to
Try saying か and が alternatively a few times. Notice how similar they are, but just slightly different. Then do the same with the other sounds. They’re all minor variations having to do with your vocal chords and some lip movement for the はばぱ changing. If it isn’t clicking, do the same but feel your throat while doing it. You should notice a much stronger vibration for the altered sounds because they’re being voiced.
If you can get the feel for how each sound is changing it becomes easier to remember. There’s also brute force memorization because it’s only 5 variations with a few exceptions in there.
Seems like you already got the good information about voiced versus unvoiced sounds, so that’s great! The thing to be aware of is that the only exception is that H turns into B, which isn’t very intuitive from a learner’s perspective, so you kind of just have to memorize that one. But the good news is that the little circle turns B into P and that *is* back on the same track of things!