The basic gojūon gives you 46 kana, but Japanese has more sounds than that. Rather than invent new shapes, the writing system reuses the ones you already know and adds a tiny mark to change the sound. Two such marks exist: the dakuten (濁点), which voices a consonant, and the handakuten (半濁点), which turns the h-row into p. Learn these two marks and you unlock roughly 25 more syllables without memorizing a single new shape.
The dakuten (゛): voicing
The dakuten is a pair of short strokes — like a quotation mark — written at the top-right of a kana. It represents voicing: the vocal cords buzz where before they didn't. In articulatory terms it turns a voiceless consonant into its voiced partner, and it applies to exactly four rows.
| Plain row | With dakuten | Sound change |
|---|---|---|
| か き く け こ (k) | が ぎ ぐ げ ご | k → g (ga gi gu ge go) |
| さ し す せ そ (s) | ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ | s → z (za ji zu ze zo) |
| た ち つ て と (t) | だ ぢ づ で ど | t → d (da ji zu de do) |
| は ひ ふ へ ほ (h) | ば び ぶ べ ぼ | h → b (ba bi bu be bo) |
Notice the "quotation mark" is the same mark every time — か → が, さ → ざ, た → だ, は → ば. What changes is only the base kana under it.
かぎ
ka gi
key — the き has a dakuten, making it 'gi.'
でんわ
de n wa
telephone — で is た-row voiced to 'de.'
ざる
za ru
a bamboo strainer/colander — さ voiced to 'za.'
ぶた
bu ta
pig — ふ voiced all the way to 'bu.'
The handakuten (゜): the p-row
The handakuten is a small circle at the top-right of a kana. It does one thing and one thing only: it turns the h-row into the p-row.
| Plain | With handakuten | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| は ひ ふ へ ほ (h) | ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ | h → p (pa pi pu pe po) |
Only the h-row can take the handakuten. There is no か゚ or さ゚ — those combinations simply do not exist. This makes the circle a reliable signal: if you see a handakuten, the base kana is always one of は ひ ふ へ ほ.
Pure-native words with the p-sound are relatively rare (the sound clusters in loanwords and in mimetic "sound words"), but they do exist, and you meet them early:
たんぽぽ
ta n po po
dandelion — a native word using ぽ (ほ + handakuten).
ぴかぴか
pi ka pi ka
sparkling / shiny — a mimetic word; the p-sound loves these.
えんぴつ
e n pi tsu
pencil — ぴ is ひ with the little circle.
The h-row shows off all three states
Because the h-row is the one row that takes both marks, it is the perfect place to see the whole system at once. The same base kana ひ gives you three different sounds depending on its mark:
| Plain (h) | Dakuten (b) | Handakuten (p) |
|---|---|---|
| ひ hi | び bi | ぴ pi |
| は ha | ば ba | ぱ pa |
| ふ fu | ぶ bu | ぷ pu |
ひ
hi
fire / day (sun) — plain h-row.
び
bi
the 'bi' in words like へび (snake) or えび (shrimp) — dakuten, voiced.
ぴ
pi
the 'pi' in えんぴつ (pencil) — handakuten, p-sound.
The one thing to memorize: minimal pairs
Because a mark is the only difference between many words, dropping or adding one changes the word entirely. Train your eye to see the mark as a full letter, not decoration.
| Without mark | With mark |
|---|---|
| かき (kaki) — persimmon | かぎ (kagi) — key |
| て (te) — hand | で (de) — the "at/by" particle |
| さる (saru) — monkey | ざる (zaru) — strainer |
| ふた (futa) — lid | ぶた (buta) — pig |
かきとかぎ
kaki to kagi
a persimmon and a key — one dakuten is the whole difference.
The じ/ぢ and ず/づ tangle (the yotsugana)
Here is the one genuinely arbitrary corner of the voicing system, and honesty is better than pretending it is clean: two pairs of kana produce the same sound.
- じ (from し) and ぢ (from ち) are both pronounced "ji."
- ず (from す) and づ (from つ) are both pronounced "zu."
These four are collectively called the yotsugana (四つ仮名, "the four kana"). In older Japanese they were four distinct sounds; over centuries they merged into two. So which do you write? Modern standard spelling follows two rules:
- Default to じ and ず. In the vast majority of words, "ji" is じ and "zu" is ず. When in doubt, use these.
- Use ぢ and づ only in two situations: (a) when the sound arises from rendaku — a voicing that kicks in when two words join into a compound — and the underlying kana was ち or つ; or (b) when a ち or つ is repeated within a word.
| Word | Reading | Why ぢ / づ (not じ / ず) |
|---|---|---|
| 鼻血 → はなぢ | hanaji (nosebleed) | 鼻 (hana, nose) + 血 (chi, blood); the ち voices in the compound |
| 三日月 → みかづき | mikazuki (crescent moon) | 三日 (mika) + 月 (tsuki, moon); the つ voices in the compound |
| 続く → つづく | tsuzuku (to continue) | a repeated つ within one word |
| 縮む → ちぢむ | chijimu (to shrink) | a repeated ち within one word |
鼻血が出た。
hanaji ga deta
I got a nosebleed. — 血 'chi' voices to ぢ inside the compound, not じ.
話はまだ続く。
hanashi wa mada tsuzuku
The story continues. — the repeated つ takes づ.
The mechanism behind rendaku — why 血 becomes ぢ and how to predict when compounds voice at all — is its own topic; see rendaku in writing and the phonology of rendaku.
Placement matters: top-right, not lower-left
Both marks sit at the upper-right of the base kana, and both are small. Do not confuse them with the small kana (っ, ゃ, ゅ, ょ) that sit at the lower-left and change a word in a completely different way — those are covered on the yōon page. A dakuten voices a single mora in place; a small kana restructures the mora. Position tells them apart at a glance: top-right = voicing, lower-left = combining.
Common mistakes
❌ かき (when you mean 'key')
Incorrect — without the dakuten this is 'persimmon,' not 'key.'
✅ かぎ
ka gi
key — the dakuten on き is mandatory.
❌ はなじ
Incorrect — writing 'nosebleed' with じ. The 血 'chi' voices to ぢ in the compound.
✅ はなぢ
ha na ji
nosebleed — 鼻 + 血, so ぢ, even though it sounds identical to じ.
❌ か゚ / さ゚
Incorrect — the handakuten only goes on the h-row; か゚ and さ゚ do not exist.
✅ ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ
pa pi pu pe po
the only kana that take the handakuten — the h-row becomes p.
❌ てんき written てんぎ
Incorrect — adding a stray dakuten. 天気 (weather) is てんき; てんぎ is not a word.
✅ てんき
te n ki
weather — no dakuten; the mark is a letter, so add it only when the word demands it.
Key takeaways
- The dakuten (゛) voices four rows: k→g, s→z, t→d, h→b.
- The handakuten (゜) applies only to the h-row, turning it into p.
- Both marks sit top-right and are full letters — dropping one changes the word (かき vs かぎ).
- The yotsugana じ/ぢ and ず/づ sound identical; default to じ/ず, and use ぢ/づ only for compound voicing or a repeated ち/つ.
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Start learning Japanese→Related Topics
- The Gojūon: Reading the Hiragana GridN5 — A row-by-row walkthrough of the gojūon 'fifty sounds' grid — the five vowels, every consonant row, the irregular readings し・ち・つ・ふ, and the gaps in the y- and w-rows.
- Rendaku in Spelling: Voiced Compound ElementsN4 — Why a familiar word 'changes sound' inside a compound — sequential voicing (rendaku) adds a dakuten to the second element, turning te + kami into tegami and hana + hi into hanabi.
- Rendaku: Sequential VoicingN4 — Why the second half of a compound often voices — 手 + 紙 becomes てがみ, not てかみ — and when it doesn't, with Lyman's Law as the one reliable brake on the process.