あ (a) – Hiragana

Pronunciation

– Pronounced as the Japanese ‘a’. Sounds closest to the English ‘a’ as in ‘ark’.

About

あ in hiragana or ア in katakana (romanised a) is one of the Japanese kana that each represent one mora. あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji 安, and ア is from the radical of kanji 阿. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the first position of the alphabet, before い.

Mnemonics

Mnemonic 1: “Aah!” – The kana is a picture of a magician spinning a magical piece of cloth around his feet. Everyone in the audience is in shock and awe, saying “ahh!”.

Mnemonic 2: The picture shows the bow of a ship, Noah’s Ark, as it plunges forward through a wave.