なにぬねの — The N Row
Why the N row?
After the irregular ち, つ, し of the previous rows, the N row is the regular-pattern breather: な, に, ぬ, ね, の all follow the consonant-plus-vowel pattern with no surprises. It also adds the everyday possessive particle の (the Japanese equivalent of \"of\" or apostrophe-s, used between virtually every noun pair) and the negative verb ending 〜ない (\"don't / isn't\"). Once you've finished the N row, you can express most basic negations and ownership in casual Japanese.
Pronunciation at a glance
Words you can read with the N row
With the vowels, K, S, T, and N rows in hand, you can read a wide swath of everyday Japanese — including the all-important possessive の that links virtually every noun pair in the language. These words use only characters from the first five rows of the chart. Print these as flashcards →
What's next
After the N row, the next step is the は-row (は ひ ふ へ ほ) — the H row, where ふ is read fu (not hu) and は doubles as the topic particle that opens every Japanese sentence. From there the chart keeps filling in row by row.