Lesson 6 of 12
Kana Sprint 6 — two dots and a circle
about 5 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Read any voiced kana, and say which base character it comes from.
- Read むぎ, the shop cat's name.
Words this lesson teaches
- むぎ
- Mugi, the shop cat from Foundations 2 — mu-gi
- かぎ
- key — ka-gi
- だれ
- who — da-re
- でんわ
- telephone — de-n-wa
- かじ
- housework — ka-ji, and じ is read ji
What it explains
Twenty-five sounds, no new shapes
Four rows take the two dots: か to が, さ to ざ, た to だ, は to ば. That is twenty characters. The は row alone also takes a small circle for ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ, five more. Nothing else in the chart takes either mark, so if you see a character with dots you already know its base and its row, and the only thing to add is a buzz.
Two that do not say what the pattern predicts
じ, from し, is read ji rather than zi — the same shift that made し into shi carries over. ぢ and づ, from ち and つ, are read the same as じ and ず and are rare enough that you can meet them when you meet them. Everything else in this sprint is exactly what the base character plus a voice gives you.
Where the dots go missing
The marks are small and printed faint at small sizes, which is a real reading problem rather than a theoretical one: かき is persimmon and かぎ is key. When a word looks familiar but does not fit the sentence, checking the top-right corner of each character is usually the fastest fix.