Lesson 4 of 12
Kana Sprint 4 — は and ま
about 5 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Read the は and ま rows on sight.
- Read は as wa when it is the topic particle and as ha inside a word.
Words this lesson teaches
- はな
- flower — ha-na
- みせ
- shop — mi-se
- ほし
- star — ho-shi
- まち
- town — ma-chi
- ひと
- person — hi-to
What it explains
は is read wa when it is doing a job
Inside a word, は is ha: はな is hana, flower. Standing on its own after a noun, marking the topic, the same character is read wa. This is not a rule with exceptions to memorise — there are exactly three characters in the language that do this, は and へ and を, and all three do it only when they are particles. It is a leftover from older spelling that was never tidied up. You have been reading it correctly since Foundations 1 without knowing why; now you know why.
The row you can already half-read
は, ひ, ふ, へ, ほ are the base for two more rows: add two dots and you get ba bi bu be bo, add a small circle and you get pa pi pu pe po. No other row does both. That is Sprint 6, and it means this row is worth more attention than its size suggests — fifteen sounds ride on five shapes.