Reference sheet
Two-kana word list
Eighty words, each exactly two kana long, each built only from the forty-six basic hiragana. Japanese, English and Modern Standard Arabic on every card. Made to print.
1.The rule this list obeys
A word is on this sheet only if both of these hold:
- Exactly two kana. Not two syllables — two characters.
- Both from the forty-six. No dakuten (が, ず), no handakuten (ぱ), no small kana (っ, ょ).
The second rule is what excludes みず (water), まど (window), そば (noodles), かぎ (key) and ゆび (finger) despite all five being more common than some words that are here. All five are on the tenten and maru sheet, which picks up exactly where this one stops.
Two kana means two beats. Every kana is one mora and every mora is the same length, so に·く is even, and ほ·ん is two beats rather than the one syllable English hears in "hone". ん always takes a beat of its own.
2.The eighty words
This list is rendered from assets/vocab-data.js and needs
JavaScript.
3.One spelling, more than one word
Six entries above carry a second meaning. In speech pitch separates some of them; in writing the kanji separate all of them. Until you have either, context does the work — and in practice it does it well.
| Word | On this sheet | Also |
|---|---|---|
| はな | nose | flower |
| あめ | rain | sweets |
| くも | cloud | spider |
| はし | chopsticks | bridge; edge |
| かみ | paper | hair; god |
| した | tongue | below |
4.Notes that did not fit on a card
- ちち and はは are your own father and mother, used when speaking to someone else. Another person's parents get different words. The same split applies to あに and あね.
- こめ is rice as grain; めし is rice cooked and served, and by extension a meal. One plant, two words, and choosing the wrong one is noticeable.
- あし covers the whole limb — foot and leg are not separate words.
- とり is a bird in the sky and chicken on the plate.
- きく is both to listen and to ask. The context sorts it out, and the overlap is less strange than it looks: both are ways of getting something from another person.
- The group headings themselves use kana this list is not allowed to use — からだ needs a dakuten, どうぶつ needs two. Headings are not vocabulary, and the marks arrive on the next sheet.