Hello everyone! I'm a bit new-ish to Renshuu, so I apologize for the inconvenience. I had a question about the Hiragana learning schedule. According to the schedule, there are over a hundred terms to review, but Hiragana supposedly has 46 characters? I learned about something called "Tenten" that modifies existing characters and changes how they're pronounced. Is that why it goes beyond 46?
I'm sorry if I misunderstood anything, and I would appreciate the help. Thank you!
There is also something called maru. The characters being ぱ、ぴ、ぷ、ぺ and ぽ (pa, pi, pu, pe and po respectively. And ぴ (in the form of ぴゃ、ぴゅ、ぴょ pronounced as pya, pyu, pyo) also has 拗音(ようおん) as @リンク • リンク mentioned.
So counting the initial 46 + 25 (I think) in the が、ざ、だ、ば、ぱ lines + the 拗音(ようおん) in きゃ、しゃ、ちゅ、にょ、みゅ、ひゃ、ぴょ etc. (I believe 30) = If my non calculator brain is correct, it is over 100
My math is just average so don't rely on just my responce alone with the numbers and if any one wants to correct me. Go ahead I don't know if it is 25 with the tentens and marus and I also do not know if it is 30 with the 妖艶(ようえん)
Hope this at least kinda makes sense.
edit: just checked the schedule says 104 and I think the number I got in the sum was 101. I don't know what I missed...
There are little lines that go next to the character and change its first sound. For example,つ,(tsu) would becomeづ(dzu).That happens with almost every character exept all the vowels and n that dont have two sounds. Thats why there are so many terms.
So, to see if I understand this right, in addition to 46 base characters, there are several modified ones that alter the pronunciation of the originals? I already know about "tenten"(I think that was the name for it), which makes a つ,(tsu) into a づ(dzu) and so on(thanks, SageLavender!). According to Henrietta, "Maru" is the addition of a "P" sound to characters with that little circle symbol(ぴ is based on "Hi", but with the circle, it becomes "Pi") and a bunch of others that account for the rest of the terms? I THINK I get it?
Well, turns out I have a MUCH longer way to go to master even basic spelling than I thought! Thanks!
Yes, basically, you have the 46 characters. However, the number of pronunciations and changes adds up.
When most of them are voiced, they have a dakuten diacritic mark, and only one row on top of that has a second voiced mark called a handakuten. Used for the "p" sounds from the "b" sounds. Further from that, you take any of those characters which end in the i vowel (except the a row, since you need a consonant) combined with small ゃ, ゅ and ょ, adding up the total.
And all this is just the beginning.
You also have to learn katakana, which has the same amount of possible pronunciations. It's just a different script. You're just about doubling the scripts to use, for the same pronunciations, rather.
There are the 46 base characters あ-ん then the characters like が and ぽ then there’s the combined characters like きゃ and ぴょ with the smaller characters of よ ゆ and や so yes there over a hundred
Oh, this is all the easy part. You'd be using it, particularly hiragana, almost all the time. You'd know it pretty much by heart.
It's that when you get to kanji, you have to figure out readings, and they all have at least one reading. A few also have outliers that you can't find in a dictionary alone. They'd be read from the word they form that way. Otherwise the readings you've studied would be the most common ones, but out in the wild, you're likely gonna guess what it reads if you don't already know the word. Most kanji have at least 2 readings individually to learn (and some specuial rules with readings), and there's thousands of kanji! That's your challenge. Don't sweat it though, since native Japanese people can't remember them all anyway either.
But at least when you learn vocabulary and grammar, what you know and remember would make learning pretty easy. The forgetting part makes it harder than it needs to be.
I was actually kinda curious about Kanji and had a question about that. According to a quick search I did, it's based on Chinese somehow? So when I learn Kanji, I'm basically learning two languages in a way? Is Kanji even necessary when it comes to learning Japanese? It just seems like an entirely different language from my perspective...then again, my perspective IS lacking, so I guess that's why I'm asking.
