Hiragana for Lesson 23

ち is pronounced /chi/. It is the ２番目（にばんめ）のかな in the た行, the ４行目 （よんばんめ） in the hiragana. ち comes from the 漢字（かんじ） 知. Words to practice for today: ち （血） blood ちいさい（小さい） small くち（口） mouth ちか（地下） underground いち（一） one さちこ female name しち（七） seven おちゃ（お茶） o-cha tea

ち with 濁点 （だくてん） daku-ten make ぢ ji. The sound /ji/ is usually written with じ, however. The rules behind when to use which are technical and may be found at 仮名遣い. Use じ as the default as it is correct the vast majority of the time.

鼻血 はなぢ hanaji bloody nose is a case where 濁点 （だくてん） are added to make the pronunciation easier. This kind of change is called 音便 おんびん or euphony.

小さい is another ーい adjective.

Notice that the English has "is," but the Japanese has only an adjective. Adding a だ after an ーい adjective is wrong.

地下鉄（ちかてつ） means underground iron, or subway.

一（いち） and 七（しち） are 漢数字（かんすうじ） Chinese numbers.

Other female names are みちこ、ちかこ、 and ちよこ. こ（子） is very common.

The お in お茶 is the honorific お. Although honorific prefixes are usually optional, not using one for お茶 is more in bad taste than simply leaving off the honorable prefix. (Note that the お is not used for types of tea: 麦茶（むぎちゃ） barley tea, 紅茶（こうちゃ） black tea, 烏龍茶 （ううろんちゃ） oolong tea.)

Remember to keep the 書き順 and 方向!

書き順と方向をしっかりと守ってください。

Copyright 12/02/98 Benjamin Barrett

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