The Japanese language is made up of ideograms, where each ideogram can have a meaning. This means that the Japanese language is full of very short words that often consist of just one letter, syllable, or sound.
The Japanese alphabet is not composed of conventional letters, but characters that form a sound, similar to the syllables in Portuguese. Each ideogram is usually also one of these sounds, or sometimes two or even three sounds (syllables). However, most of the time, more than one ideogram is needed to form a complete word.
The problem is that there are several Japanese words formed by just one ideogram or kanji, as the Japanese call them. In Portuguese, we have something similar called monosyllables like “lá“, “nó“, and “eu“, but in Japanese, it is more complicated because it is not the combination of two letters, but just one.
Things get even worse when we remember that there are few syllables in the Japanese language, and that there is no modification in the pronunciation of these syllables like accents in Portuguese. These are some of the main reasons why the Japanese language uses ideograms.
In Japanese, monosyllabic words are called tan-onsetsu [単音節].
Japanese words with one syllable
Below we will present a list of Japanese words composed of one syllable or hiragana. Most of these words necessarily require an ideogram to make any sense. Later we will share an exclusive list of Japanese words composed only of the hiragana A I U E O (あいうえお).
| Portuguese | Japanese | Romanization |
| Mosquito | 蚊 | ka |
| Tree | 木 | ki |
| Hair | 毛 | ke |
| Child | 子 | ko |
| Death | 死 | shi |
| Vine | 酢 | su |
| Blood | 血 | chi |
| Hand | 手 | te |
| Tooth | 歯 | ha |
| Fire | 火 | hi |
| Day | 日 | hi |
| Eye | 目 | me |
| Arrow | 矢 | ya |
Some of the words mentioned in this article may not be commonly used alone, but only complement other words and expressions as a suffix or prefix. Since there are multiple readings in an ideogram, there can be different ways to use the word.
Japanese words with literally one letter
There are Japanese words that are formed with just one vowel A, I, U, E, or O. This can be even more complicated if we are reading a sentence without kanji or without being fully structured. Below is a list of Japanese words composed only of one letter (Roman character).
| Portuguese | Japanese | Romanization |
| Painting | 絵 | e |
| Stomach | 胃 | i |
| Tail | 尾 | o |
| Handle | 緒 | o |
| Cormorant (bird) | 鵜 | u |
| Well (sufficient) | 井 | i |
I tried to include only ideograms that are usually used in isolation as a noun or word. If we were to examine all the ideograms that have a reading of just one syllable, this list would be endless.
Learning the words in this article becomes easier as they are just a hiragana or syllable. I hope this article has been helpful to you, reader. If you liked it, share it with your friends and leave your comments.
Do you know other monosyllabic words in Japanese? If you do, share them with us in the comments!
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