がぎぐげご — The G Row
Why the G row?
The G row is your first dakuten row — and it's a free upgrade. Every shape is identical to the K row; the only difference is the two small tick marks ゛ at the upper right that voice the consonant: か (ka) → が (ga), き (ki) → ぎ (gi), and so on. Once you know the K row, you already know how to write every G-row character. Grammatically, が is the subject-marker particle (これがいい, "this one is good"), ご appears as a polite prefix on Sino-Japanese nouns (ご飯 gohan, "meal"), and げんき (元気) anchors every greeting (お元気ですか?).
Pronunciation at a glance
Words you can read with the G row
With every base row plus がぎぐげご, you unlock a huge chunk of everyday vocabulary — schools, banks, mornings, meals, and the most-used subject-marker particle in the language. These examples lean heavily on G-row characters. Print these as flashcards →
What's next
After the G row, the next dakuten step is the Z row (ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ) — the S row plus ゛. It introduces じ (ji, the same shape as し with two ticks) and ず (zu, from す), which appear in countless verbs and nouns. After Z comes the D row (だ ぢ づ で ど), the B row (ば び ぶ べ ぼ), and finally the P row using the round handakuten ゜ (ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ).