Hiragana Dakuten & Handakuten: Complete Guide + Quiz

Two tiny marks — and suddenly dozens of new sounds open up. The dakuten (゛), two small diagonal dashes, voices a consonant. The handakuten (゜), a small circle, creates the P-sounds. Add small kana ゃ, ゅ, and ょ, and you get the combination syllables that appear in words like びょういん (byōin, hospital) and しゅくだい (shukudai, homework) — words you'll meet on your very first day of real reading.

Without these marks, you cannot read authentic Japanese text. This guide makes sure you can.

If you're building from scratch, start with the guide to the five basic hiragana vowels あいうえお and the lesson on the かきくけこ row before continuing — this page assumes you know the core hiragana set.

Dakuten (゛): Voicing Consonants

Dakuten — nicknamed ten-ten (てんてん, literally "dot dot") by Japanese children — are the two small dashes written to the top-right of a hiragana character. They signal that the consonant is voiced: your vocal cords vibrate rather than releasing a puff of unvoiced air.

Memory hook: Picture the two dashes as a vibrating vocal cord. When you see ゛, switch your voice on.

Dakuten applies to four rows:

K-row → G-row

S-row → Z-row

T-row → D-row

*ぢ and づ are pronounced identically to じ (ji) and ず (zu) in modern standard Japanese. You'll spot them in a handful of words — つづく (tsuzuku, to continue) is a well-known one — but you'll almost never write them yourself.

H-row → B-row

Handakuten (゜): The P-Sounds

Handakuten — called maru (まる, circle) — is the small raised circle that appears only on the H-row. It creates five P-sounds that exist nowhere else in the hiragana chart.

Memory hook: The circle looks like a puff of air popping off your lips. Pa, pi, pu, pe, po — every one is a lip pop.

Cultural note: P-sounds are rare in native Japanese vocabulary — most ぱ, ぴ, ぷ, ぺ, ぽ words are loanwords. ぱん (pan, bread) arrived from Portuguese; ぴあの (piano) came from Italian. When you spot a handakuten, there is a good chance the word is borrowed from another language rather than native Japanese.

Small Kana (Yōon): Combination Syllables

Small ゃ, ゅ, and ょ follow い-column characters to form single blended syllables called yōon (拗音, contracted sounds). The rule is simple: the small kana merges with the character before it into one beat, not two.

きゃ is kya, not ki-ya. しゅ is shu, not shi-yu. Japanese speech is timed in mora — each unit gets equal length — and yōon counts as a single unit.

Here is the complete yōon chart, including voiced and semi-voiced rows:

Note on ぢゃ/ぢゅ/ぢょ: These technically exist but are vanishingly rare in modern Japanese and pronounced identically to じゃ, じゅ, じょ. Leave them out of active study for now.

Also worth recognising: The small っ (sokuon, double-consonant mark) works differently from ゃゅょ — rather than blending with the character before it, it doubles the consonant that follows. You see it in everyday words like ざっし (zasshi, magazine) and ちょっと (chotto, a little). It counts as one beat of near-silence before the doubled consonant — you will encounter it constantly in real Japanese.

Common Mistakes Learners Make

Splitting yōon into two syllables. Learners frequently pronounce きゃ as ki-ya (two beats) instead of kya (one beat). Slow down and blend the sounds together — きゃ, しゅ, ちょ — until the habit of treating them as separate characters disappears completely.

Skipping dakuten when reading quickly. The ゛mark is small, especially in handwritten or printed Japanese. Missing it changes meaning entirely: かみ (kami) means "paper" or "god," while がみ (gami) shifts the word — as in おりがみ (origami, paper folding). Precision with these marks matters from the very first character.

Treating ぢ and づ as distinct sounds. Both ぢ and じ are pronounced ji; both づ and ず are pronounced zu. Learners sometimes assume ぢ sounds different — it does not, in modern standard Japanese. Default to じ for ji and ず for zu; reserve ぢ and づ only for words where conventional spelling demands them.

Forgetting the H-row is doubly special. Every other dakuten row changes once. The H-row changes twice: は → ば (B-sound, dakuten) and は → ぱ (P-sound, handakuten). This makes the H-row the most versatile base row in all of hiragana.

Essential Vocabulary and Example Sentences

These common N5-level words put the patterns from this page into practice — learn them now and your reading will jump forward immediately:

Now see them in full sentences:

1. がくせいです。 Gakusei desu. I am a student.
2. でんしゃで いきます。 Densha de ikimasu. I go by train.
3. きょう、ぱんを たべました。 Kyō, pan o tabemashita. Today I ate bread.
4. びょういんへ いきます。 Byōin e ikimasu. I'm going to the hospital.
5. ざっしを よみます。 Zasshi o yomimasu. I read a magazine.

Struggling to hear the difference between か and が, or unsure whether you're blending ちょ as one beat? Book a Free Trial lesson over LINE and drill these exact sounds live with a native Japanese teacher.

Practice Quiz

Cover the answers and test yourself. No peeking.

Part 1 — Read the Hiragana (write the romaji)

Part 2 — Write in Hiragana

Part 3 — Small Kana (Yōon) (write the romaji)

Part 4 — Vocabulary (write the English meaning)

Answers

FAQ

What is the difference between dakuten and handakuten?

Dakuten (゛) are two small dashes that voice a consonant — turning か (ka) into が (ga), for example. Handakuten (゜) is a small circle that appears only on the H-row, converting it into P-sounds: は (ha) becomes ぱ (pa). The marks look similar but produce very different transformations and the circle appears on far fewer characters.

How many hiragana characters take dakuten?

Twenty characters take dakuten, spread across four rows: K-row (5), S-row (5), T-row (5), and H-row (5). That same H-row additionally accepts handakuten for five P-sounds. Vowel rows (あ, い, う, え, お), the N-sound (ん), and the M and W rows take neither mark.

Are じ and ぢ really the same sound?

In modern standard Japanese, yes — both are pronounced ji. Likewise, ず and づ are both zu. Historical Japanese distinguished these pairs, but the distinction has merged in contemporary spoken and written standard Japanese. In practice, write じ for ji and ず for zu, and reserve ぢ and づ only for the small set of words whose conventional spelling requires them.

Do the same dakuten rules apply to katakana?

Yes — dakuten and handakuten work identically in katakana. カ becomes ガ, ハ becomes バ or パ, and so on across every row. Once hiragana is solid, the katakana dakuten and handakuten lesson will take almost no extra effort because the underlying logic is exactly the same.

This is a bonus lesson in the Kind Japanese beginner hiragana curriculum, completing the full hiragana sound system before learners move on to katakana.