Rocket Japanese Community

Konnichiwa,

I just purchased this course about a week ago and am studying the Hiragana along with it. I've run into something that I don't understand yet though. There are two symbols for 'o' both in Hiragana and Katakana, what are the rules for when to use the different symbols? I was curious because I'm trying to use the Romaji transcripts to strengthen my Hiragana and Katakana by writing the Hiragana and Katakana equivalent and noticed that in some places one symbol for 'o' is used and in other seemingly similar circumstances the other symbol is used.

From what I understand, the second o (next to wa on the hiragana chart) is pronounced "wo." On other charts I have found it say wo instead of o. So I just stuck with it being wo...hope that helps.

From what I understand K73sK is correct. The "O" that is next to WA is "WO/を". But when you see the Particle used for direct obects "O" the sybmol used is "WO/を" but it is pronouced just as "O". For example "Ringu O Tabemasu" or "りんご を たべます". Just like for Watashi wa, is actually HA/は not the symbol for WA/わ. Or another is the particle E is actually HE/へ not E/え. Hope that helps.

Whats really great is JA/じゃ and JA/ぢゃ... Both pronounced the same... じゃis much more common I believe but still need to know ぢゃ and when to use it.

it's ringo :p

And you said that they don't use the wa symbol, but instead the ha symbol when using the particle "wa." Why is this? When using romaji, why not just spell it the way it's supposed to be? like "Watashia ha"

Sorry for the typo, yes its ringo not ringu. Atleast the Kana spelling I got right.

As for why spell it as wa and not ha in romaji... I would assume because it is still pronounced wa and not ha. So when translated you would wanted it to stay true to the sound. Imagine English speakers learning Japanese from the begining and reading "watashi ha"... they are going to start speaking it that way was well. Even though the HA/は symbol is used it is still pronunced as WA when used as a particle.

As to why they use the Kana for HA for the particle WA... I am not really sure other then I believe it probably came as part of one of the language reforms Japan has gone through in the past. Maybe Sayaka or someone could explain that in more detail.

Minnasan Konnichiwa!

The usage of は is a bit of an exception in the Hiragana system. It's almost like irregular verbs that you simply have to memorize the different forms because there are not "make-sense" rules.

So, here it is.
In Hiragana, with the exception of the topic marker Wa or は the sound Wa is always written わ. Like in わかります (Wakarimasu) "understand" and feminine sentence ending particle わ like うれしいわ! (Ureshii wa!).

BUT... the TOPIC MARKER Wa is an EXCEPTION. It's written は.

When は appears ANYWHERE ELSE it is read Ha like in はい　(Hai), but as a topic marker, it is read Wa.

The good news is, you NEVER have to be confused over わ, and when you come across a は you have to determine if it's marking a topic or it's part of another word.