What is the hiragana symbol for “Ai” in Japanese?
1. “Ai” is made up of two different vowel sounds, and is written using the hiragana symbols for “a” and “i” – あい. There are no symbols for dipthongs (vowels with two parts) in the Japanese writing system. 2. The reason why あい becomes 愛 is because kanji (those more complex Chinese characters), unlike hiragana, are not limited to one syllable. 風 (wind), for example, can be written in hiragana as かぜ (kaze). Kanji can be more than one syllable. ^_^ But they’re a different writing system than hiragana, so 愛 is -not- the hiragana symbol for “ai” … okay? =] 3. I should warn you, however, that depending on the usage, kanji can have more than one hiragana/katakana equivalent. You’ll probably go over kanji more thorougly as you progress, so I’ll leave it there. 🙂 Just worry about hiragana for now! Hope that helps! Good luck! (I highly recommend finding a book, even one from the library, to aid you in your studies.
