Beginner-friendly Japanese words you can read with the D row (だ, ぢ, づ, で, ど) plus every row you already know. The D row is the T row with two tiny tick marks (゛). Note: ぢ (ji) and づ (zu) sound identical to じ and ず — in modern Japanese they appear only in specific historical compounds. The workhorses are だ, で, and ど. Print on letter-size paper, flip on the long edge, cut along the dashed lines.
PrintSheet 1 · Front
Sheet 1 · Back (mirror — print on reverse)
Sheet 2 · Front
Sheet 2 · Back (mirror — print on reverse)
Sheet 3 · Front
Sheet 3 · Back (mirror — print on reverse)
These DADIDUDEDO hiragana flashcards drill the D row — the third of the dakuten rows. Adding ゛ to a T-row kana voices it: た (ta) becomes だ (da), て (te) becomes で (de), and so on. Three D-row characters (だ, で, ど) are heavily used in everyday speech; two (ぢ, づ) are largely vestigial in modern Japanese.
You get double-sided flashcards printed on letter-size paper (8.5 × 11 inches). The front of each card shows the Japanese word in hiragana; the back shows the English meaning plus the romaji reading. The D row unlocks structural grammar: だ is the casual copula ("is / am / are"), で is the location/means particle ("at", "by", "with"), and ど opens the all-purpose interrogatives どこ, どれ, どう (where, which one, how).
The point of beginner hiragana flashcards isn't just memorising characters — it's connecting them to real vocabulary the moment you learn them. Use the deck this way:
The D row is grammatically heavy. だ is the plain-form copula, ending casual statements ("これは本だ" — "this is a book"); its polite cousin です replaces だ in formal speech. で is one of the most-used particles in Japanese, marking where an action happens, what tool is used, or the means by which (家で食べる — "eat at home", ペンで書く — "write with a pen"). ど opens the interrogative ど〜 series — どこ (where), どれ (which one), どう (how), どんな (what kind), どちら (which direction). The rare ぢ and づ appear mostly in 続く (tsudzuku, "to continue" — though usually spelled つづく) and 鼻血 (hanaji written as 鼻ぢ in older orthography). In modern writing, default to じ and ず unless a compound word specifically demands ぢ/づ.
After you've mastered these DADIDUDEDO flashcards, deepen your hiragana skills with our other free tools: