1 6 1 Lesson 1 1 Lesson 1: Hiragana The first step we will take on your journey through MangaLand will be to learn a little about the Japanese writing system: we are obviously talking about those “inscriptions” which many of you may have encountered. In these few first lessons you will need to put forth a great effort in order to learn the two syllabaries. The syllabaries The syllabaries are essential for the correct learning of the Japanese language. Most Japanese textbooks use rõmaji –that is, the “Romanized” alphabet– to teach the begin- ner. However, rõmaji eventually becomes inadequate, as knowing only spoken Japanese is the same as being illiterate. If you wish to learn Japanese at all levels and, especially, if you wish to be able to read magazines or comic books, your study must include learn- ing how to read and write the two Japanese syllabaries. This will be the first step towards a sound learning of the language. You must get used to Japanese characters as soon as possible, so we will start with the writing basics. In Japanese there is no such thing as an “alphabet” as we know it. Instead, there are two “syllabaries” called hiragana and katakana. A Japanese character usually equals a two-letter syllable in our language (that is why they are called “syllabaries.”) Thus, the character is read ka. There is only one exception: the sound “n,” the only consonant sound that can go on its own. Both hiragana and katakana have 46 syllabic symbols, each equivalent to its corres- ponding symbol in the other syllabary in pronunciation –but written