Welcome back! This is the second article in a series on the Japanese writing system. In the first article we took a look at kanji 漢字, where we learned a few key things: 1) kanji express meaning, 2) different kanji can be read the same way (e.g. 髪 “hair” and 紙 “paper” are both “kami”), and 3) each kanji can be read differently. In this article we’ll take a look at hiragana ひらがな. There are 46 unique hiragana shapes, all of which are derived from one kanji or another. In general, hiragana ...