Diacritics

1: Diacritic Marks

By adding diacritic marks, you can modify the sound of some hiragana characters.

How to Write Diacritic Marks

	Two short strokes attached to the right shoulder of some symbols can change the voiceless -k-, -s-, -t- and -h- sounds to the respective voiced sounds of -g-, -z-, -d- and -b- (e.g., か to が ).
	A small circle attached to the right shoulder of the /h/ column symbols changes the -h- sound to the -p- sound (e.g., は to ぱ ).

The following is a Hiragana Chart with diacritic marks. Click on each column in the chart and hear how the diacritic marks change the sound of hiragana.

じ and ぢ are pronounced with the same -ji- sound, as in jeep (not -di- as in deep). Likewise, ず and づ share the same -zu- sound, as in zoo (not -du- as in do). However, these characters are not interchangeable. Each word has only one correct spelling. In general, じ and ず are used far more frequently than ぢ and づ. When typing Japanese on a computer,
the following alphabet-to-hiragana conversions will occur.

If you type (without hyphens)	you will get
s-i-z-u-k-a / s-h-i-z-u-k-a	しずか	This means "quiet."
s-i-d-u-k-a / s-h-i-d-u-k-a	しづか	づ is misspelled
k-a-j-i / k-a-z-i	かじ	This means "fire" or "house chores."
k-a-d-i	かぢ	ぢ is misspelled
t-u-d-u-k-u / t-s-u-d-u-k-u	つづく	This means "continue."
t-u-z-u-k-u / t-s-u-z-u-k-u	つずく	ず is misspelled
h-a-n-a-d-i	はなぢ	This means "nosebleed."
h-a-n-a-z-i / h-a-n-a-j-i	はなじ	じ is misspelled