Your first Japanese words

Reading without spaces

Japanese is written with no gaps between words. A line of hiragana is a run of signs, and you find the word boundaries by knowing the words. That sounds hard and is not: each sign is one syllable, so you read straight along and the words assemble themselves.

Two signs, two syllables, and one word. Say each sign as your finger draws it.

And a word with a mark on its second sign. The mark is written last, after the sign is finished.

One more thing the writing does: a vowel can be held twice as long, and hiragana shows that by adding another vowel sign. おかあさん is not o-ka-a-san said quickly; the doubled sign means the a is simply held.

ほしがきれいthe stars are beautiful

みずをのむto drink water