わをん — The W Row
Why these three?
These three close the hiragana chart. Modern Japanese dropped the would-be 'wi' and 'we' sounds centuries ago, leaving only わ and を in the W row, plus the standalone syllabic nasal ん. They're small in count but huge in usage: わ packs into 私 (watashi, "I") and 川 (kawa, "river"); を exists almost exclusively as the direct-object particle (pronounced o) that marks what verbs act upon; and ん is the only standalone consonant in the chart, closing countless words — 本 (hon), 円 (en), さん (the honorific suffix).
Pronunciation at a glance
Words you can read with the full chart
With every row through the R row plus わ, を, and ん, you can read every basic hiragana word in the language. These examples lean on ん and わ for everyday nouns and on を for object-marked phrases. Print these as flashcards →
What's next
You've reached the end of the basic hiragana chart — every row from あいうえお through わをん. From here, the next chapters extend what you've learned: dakuten and handakuten (が, ざ, だ, ば, ぱ — the voiced and plosive variants formed by adding ゛ or ゜ to existing kana), and combined kana (きゃ, しゅ, ちょ — small ゃ/ゅ/ょ joined with i-row characters). With all 46 basic hiragana, you can already read a huge chunk of beginner Japanese.