Hiragana Chart – Yōsetsu

Adding a dakuten (濁点・だくてん) to a character changes the consonant part of the character from an unvoiced consonant to a voiced consonant. That is:
/k/ → /g/
/s/ → /z/
/t/ → /d/
/h/ → /b/
We often see dakuten in words which are formed by combining simpler words. For example, 花火・はなび・hanabi = “firework.” In this example, the simpler words are 花・はな・hana = “flower” and 火・ひ・hi = “fire.” The presence of な・na before ひ・hi changes its consonant from /h/ to /b/.

Adding a handakuten (半濁点・はんだくてん) to a character changes the consonant part of the character from /h/ to /p/.
Long ago, there was no /h/ sound in Japanese. The characters in the h-row of the hiragana table (は, ひ, ふ, へ, ほ) all had /p/ consonant sounds. Over time, the /p/ sound changed to an /h/ sound. The handakuten mark was added to the Japanese language to restore the old /p/ sound.

ぱ
pa
🔊

ぴ
pi
🔊

ぷ
pu
🔊

ぺ
pe
🔊

ぽ
po
🔊

The Japanese name for compound hiragana is 拗音・ようおん・yō’on = “crooked sounds.”
Although we use two hiragana characters to write them, compound hiragana are the same length as single hiragana characters when spoken.
All the compound hiragana are combinations of one character from the i-column of the hiragana table (き, し, ち, に, ひ, み, り) and one of either ゃ, ゅ, or ょ.