1.0 Head Start with Japanese
If you are looking for a language that brings excitement and practicality, Japanese is an excellent choice. With its rich culture and influence on entertainment, technology and business, Japanese is a language that can unlock many opportunities and enrich your experiences.
This chapter is a vital introduction to Japanese, focusing on equipping you with one of the fundamental scripts in the language – hiragana. Hiragana is a set of phonetic symbols that are mainly used for grammatical particles, as well as the endings of verbs and adjectives.
So why wait? Start your Japanese language journey today and discover all the thrilling possibilities that await you!
Learning goals
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Understand what hiragana is and how it functions.
- Understand the benefits of learning hiragana.
- Identify and read the 46 basic hiragana characters.
- Read some simple Japanese words that use hiragana characters.
- Set up a Japanese keyboard input on your computer.
- Type in Japanese.
Figures
1 “Cherry Blossom” by Ryutaro Tsukata. Pexels. Licensed under Pexels licence.
2 
“Goal Icon” by faisalovers. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC by 3.0.
