konnichwa everyone this is the kanji katakana and hiragana page welcome got questions? ask us!

Help! I'm three weeks into my course and just beginning to follow the audios by reading the Hiragana text. I'm confused. In lots of instances the Romaji shows "wa" but the Hiragana uses the character for "ha". This also happens in phrase books. What have I missed?

Konnichiwa ! The "ha" particle is pronounced in 2 ways: "HA" when it's part of a word and "WA" when it marks the topic of the sentence. For example: ひと　を　はなせる　です - It's English speaking person -> here, it's part of a ward and it's read as "HA". その　りんご　は とても　あまい　です - This apple is very sweet -> here, it follows the word "ringo" (=apple) and marks it as being the topic of the sentence. Because it's a topic marker, it's read as "WA". There are also other markers like: "ga" - subject, "wo" (read as "o") for direct object, "ni" - time and direction marker, "he" (read as "e") - strictly to mark positions or show a direction. Well, these are the most frequently used. Hope this helps :D, コッド

It should also be noted that "ha" may sometimes be pronounced as "wa" even when you think it's part of the word. Eg. Konnichiwa! Is written as こんにちは　because the "ha" is actually the topic marker of "Konnichi" (today/this day).

konncihwa everyone i need help with my kanji and katakana i really wanna learn those two to but they dint have it on rocket japanaes ei s their any websites that will help me on that?

in the first of the worrds you must use wa but at the end of the words you can use ha

Keyatta-san, they teach you katakana too at Rocket Japanese, just follow the lessons. As for kanji, you are introduced a bit to it, but not a lot. So you could use different sources for Kanji, like mnemonics or flash cards. Saeed-san, let me explain again how it works: The particle "ha", when it's used as part of a word like: HAnasu (=to speak), HAtaraku (=to work), HAntai (= opposite), goHAn (=rice) etc., is read as "ha" (exactly how you write it in romanji). - Please note that when it's a part of a word, it can be anywhere within it, not only at the beginning, that's why I mentioned "gohan" as an example too ! On the other hand, when it is used as a particle to mark the topic of a sentence (topic of sentence = the thing to which the sentence is referring to), it's reading changes to "wa". For example: - わたし　は　コッド - watashi wa Coddo. Note that the "ha" particle is read "wa", just like the wa in watashi (= I / me). Here, it is used as a particle and mars the "I / ME" word as the topic of the sentence => the sentence is about me. Pascal-san, I didn't mention the konnichiwa word because I thought it's compounds are obvious: kon - a reading from the character for "now" (今), here meaning "this", nichi = day and the "ha" particle (read as "wa" here) to make an emphasis that I'm talking about this day =>good day :D. Hope I managed to clarify things a bit, コッド

Great explanation コッドさん！ すごいです。。。 さやか ;)

さやかせんせい、ありがとう　！

どういたしまして！ さやか;)