🌟 Extended Kana - Unlocking More Japanese Sounds!
You've mastered basic hiragana and katakana - now it's time to expand your toolkit! Extended kana characters add dakuten marks (゛) and handakuten marks (゜) to create new sounds, plus special combinations that unlock even more pronunciation possibilities.
🎯 What Are Extended Kana Characters?
Extended kana characters are modifications of the basic 46 hiragana and katakana characters you already know! By adding special marks or combining characters, Japanese creates many more sounds without needing completely new symbols.
🔍 Three Types of Extensions:
- • Dakuten (゛) - Makes sounds voiced (k→g, s→z)
- • Handakuten (゜) - Changes h sounds to p sounds
- • Small kana - Creates combination sounds (きゃ, しゅ)
📈 This Expands Your Vocabulary To:
- • 25 dakuten characters
- • 5 handakuten characters
- • 33 combination sounds
💡 Quick Visual Guide:
| Basic Character | Add Mark | Extended Character | Sound Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| か | + ゛ | が | ka → ga |
| は | + ゜ | ぱ | ha → pa |
| き + ゃ | combine | きゃ | ki + ya → kya |
゛
Dakuten (゛) - The Voicing Mark
Dakuten (゛) means "muddy point" and it literally makes sounds "muddier" or voiced! Think of the difference between whispering "k" and saying "g" out loud - that's what dakuten does. It transforms quiet, unvoiced sounds into their voiced counterparts.
🗣️ How Voicing Works:
- • Put your hand on your throat
- • Say "ka" - no vibration (unvoiced)
- • Say "ga" - you feel vibration (voiced)
- • That vibration is what dakuten adds!
- • Same mouth position, just turn on your voice
📝 Which Rows Get Dakuten:
- • K row: か → が (ka → ga)
- • S row: さ → ざ (sa → za)
- • T row: た → だ (ta → da)
- • H row: は → ば (ha → ba)
- • Not used with vowels, N, Y, R, W rows
📊 Complete Dakuten Transformation Chart
| Row | Unvoiced | Voiced (Dakuten) | Sound Change | Example Word |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K→G | か き く け こ | が ぎ ぐ げ ご | ka→ga, ki→gi... | がっこう (school) |
| S→Z | さ し す せ そ | ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ | sa→za, shi→ji... | ざっし (magazine) |
| T→D | た ち つ て と | だ ぢ づ で ど | ta→da, chi→di... | でんわ (telephone) |
| H→B | は ひ ふ へ ほ | ば び ぶ べ ぼ | ha→ba, hi→bi... | ばんごはん (dinner) |
🔊 Click any character to hear its pronunciation
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ゃ
Small Kana and Contracted Sounds (Yōon)
Another form of character extension involves using small versions of や, ゆ, and よ (written as ゃ, ゅ, and ょ in Hiragana or ャ, ュ, and ョ in Katakana). When combined with i (い / イ) consonant-vowel kana like き or し, they form contracted sounds, known as yōon.
Examples of Yōon combinations:
- き (ki) + ゃ (ya) → きゃ
- し (shi) + ゅ (yu) → しゅ
- ち (chi) + ょ (yo) → ちょ
These combinations allow for more nuanced pronunciation and are especially common in names and native Japanese words.
🔊 Basic Yōon Characters
Hiragana
Katakana
Additionally, the small versions of や, ゆ, and よ can also be used with the extended characters to create contracted sounds.
🔊 Extended Yōon Characters
Hiragana
Katakana
Practice Quiz
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