Introduction to Japanese Writing: Hiragana Group 4: T (たちつてと)

The consonant for this column is T, so all five members of this group will be T followed by one of the five vowels, in order.

• た [TA]
• ち [CHI]
• つ [TSU]
• て [TE]
• と [TO]

As with し [SHI] from the last group, there are some slight irregularities in this group in order to make it clearer to English speakers how to pronounce the characters properly.  While ち and つ can appear as TI and TU in materials aimed at Japanese readers, typically they are written as shown above so that readers understand that ち should be pronounced CHI (like in “cheese”) and つ should be pronounced as TSU (like in “tsunami”, with a distinct T sound at the beginning).

How to Write

For reference, here is a quick review of the general rules for stroke order:

• All characters should fill a square of about the same size
• Top to bottom, left to right
• Horizontal strokes before vertical strokes that intersect them

Vocabulary Practice

The following words can be written using only the characters we have covered so far.  Once you’ve practiced reading them a couple of times, try writing them on a piece of paper without looking and see how well you do.

• たつ [ta tsu] dragon
• てつ [te tsu] iron
• とき [to ki] time
• ち [chi] blood

Sometimes you will see a small tsu つ in the middle of a word (e.g. きって postage stamp).  This is known as a sokuon (促音そくおん).  When you see this you stop for just a moment before pronouncing the next syllable.  This is often written in romaji as a doubled consonant.  For example:

• きって [ki t te] postage stamp
• さっき [sa k ki] earlier

Onward!

When you’re ready, click here to move on to Group 5: N!