ta / た
The first character of the T row — a clean, three-stroke 'ta' that opens dozens of beginner words for people, places, and time.
Pronunciation
The character た represents the syllable 'ta', a hard 't' followed by 'a' as in 'father'. It is the first character of the た-row. The 't' sound is unaspirated — softer than the English 't'.
た opens the た-column and shows up everywhere — 食べる (to eat), 立つ (to stand), the past-tense verb ending 〜た, the polite "want to" suffix 〜たい. It's also the second character of the everyday word あした (tomorrow). Three quick strokes; angular and confident.
How to write た
Trace た on the canvas at the top of the page. Animated arrows show each stroke's direction; trace along them and the stroke fills in. Each numbered step below explains what that stroke does.
A short horizontal stroke at the top — quick, slightly tilted, written left to right.
A long vertical stroke on the right that drops from near the top horizontal down to roughly the lower third. Straight, with a small flick at the end.
A flowing curve on the lower left: a short horizontal that hooks down and to the right, almost cupping the bottom of the vertical stroke from step 2. This little hook-and-curl is た's signature.
Origin
Hiragana た evolved from the cursive form of the kanji 太 (ta) — meaning "thick" or "great." The horizontal-and-vertical layout of た preserves the kanji's plus-sign skeleton; the lower hook is what's left of its bottom-left dot.
Common words starting with た
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing た by hand — the top row shows the stroke order to trace, then fill the blank squares.
Lock it into memory
Reading is only half of it. Drill the hiragana you’ve learned with spaced-repetition flashcards — the fastest way to make them stick.