を or お, は or わ, へ or え: Writing Japanese Particles

The official reference for writing Japanese in kana today is “Gendai Kanazukai” (現代仮名遣い, Modern Kana Usage), issued as Cabinet Notice No. 1 on July 1, 1986. It was partly revised in 2010 together with the Jōyō Kanji list, and the full text is on the website of Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (現代仮名遣い, in Japanese).

Its preface says the principle is to write words “according to the sounds of the modern language”, while “respecting established writing customs” by allowing certain exceptions. In other words, you write what you hear, with a few exceptions. The best-known exceptions are the particles は, を and へ.

Japanese children learn “how to use the particles は, へ and を” in grades 1 and 2 (Course of Study for Elementary Schools, 2017, in Japanese). Learners of Japanese meet the same question as soon as they start writing sentences in kana. This post sets out the three rules as the notice states them, and some ways to keep them straight.

The three rules

The main text of the notice has two parts: Part 1, rules based on the principle, and Part 2, exceptions based on writing custom. The particle rules are in Part 2 (Part 2, in Japanese).

1. The particle pronounced “o” is written を.
2. The particle pronounced “wa” is written は.
3. The particle pronounced “e” is written へ.

In each case the sound is お, わ or え, but the particle is written を, は or へ. If it isn’t a particle, the exception doesn’t apply.

を and お

Part 1 lists the kana used in ordinary writing, and を is underlined. Underlined kana, the notice says, are used “only in the cases shown in Part 2”. So in modern kana usage, を appears only as a particle.

That means every “o” sound inside a word is written お: おかし (sweets), かお (face), あおい (blue). Only the particle becomes を. The notice’s examples include 本を読む (to read a book), 岩をも通す and やむをえない.

A simple way to hold on to it: を is the “what” particle. 何を食べる, what are you eating; 何を見る, what are you looking at. It never belongs to a word. It only appears where one word links to the next.

は and わ

The particle は is also pronounced “wa”. The notice’s examples include 今日は日曜です (today is Sunday) and 山では雪が降りました, as well as あるいは, または, こんにちは and こんばんは. That rule is why “hello” is written こんにちは and not こんにちわ.

The notice also says some cases are not covered by this rule, giving 雨も降るわ風も吹くわ, 来るわ来るわ and きれいだわ. The sentence-ending わ is written わ.

And the “wa” sound inside a word is written わ: わたし (I), にわ (garden), かわ (river). In わたしは, the first わ is part of the word and the last は is the particle. Seeing that one phrase side by side is, I think, the clearest example there is.

へ and え

The particle へ marks a destination and is pronounced “e”. The notice’s examples are 故郷へ帰る (to return home), …さんへ (to so-and-so), 母への便り (a letter to my mother) and 駅へは数分 (a few minutes to the station). The へ at the top of a letter, as in おかあさんへ, is the same particle.

The “e” sound inside a word is written え: えき (station), いえ (house), まえ (front). Write えきへいく, “go to the station”, and え and へ sit in the same sentence.

How to tell them apart

I think it helps more to see the rules in sentences than to memorise them as a list.

Separate the word and the particle. わたし / は, ほん / を, がっこう / へ. The small kana that attaches after a word is the particle. Many first-grade Japanese textbooks print sentences with spaces between phrases, and the particle sits right before each space.

Ask the question. だれが? (who?), なにを? (what?), どこへ? (where to?). Find the kana attached to the answer. なにを and どこへ have the particle built into the question, which makes them easy to remember.

Leave は for last. は is harder to explain than the other two. “It marks the topic” is abstract. I think reading set phrases such as わたしは and きょうは until they feel familiar comes first.

Fixing mistakes

If you write わたしわ, the quickest fix is to look at a correct sentence next to your own and find the difference yourself. The same goes for parents checking a child’s writing: put the correct sentence beside it and ask “where is it different?”

In my developer interview about StudyX Japanese Letters Table, I was asked whether sending a child back to the first letter after a mistake in the listening game was too strict. I said:

That is an adult’s way of thinking. Children enjoy correcting themselves again and again.

I think particles work the same way. After correcting yourself a few times, you notice that the position in the sentence decides the kana.

Part 2 also has one more rule worth learning alongside the particles: the verb 言う is written いう, not ゆう, as in どういうこと.

StudyX Japanese Letters Table

StudyX Japanese Letters Table is a kana chart app where every cell plays its sound. The chart follows the traditional vertical layout, and the わ column on the far left holds わ and を. Tap a kana and you hear it.

In romaji mode, を is shown as wo. In the interview I explained: “I matched the way you type it on a keyboard.” When you type the particle を on a Japanese keyboard, you type wo. In the same way, you type ha for the particle は and he for へ. It doesn’t match the sound, but it matches the kana you write. The romaji rules are in Hepburn vs Kunrei Romaji, and how the chart works is in How to Memorize the Kana Chart.

The app covers the sound and shape of each kana on the chart. It does not teach particles or sentence writing, so practise those on paper or with a textbook.

It runs in landscape on both iPhone and iPad. On iPad there is a space below the chart to write freely with a finger or Apple Pencil. It is a one-time purchase with no ads and no in-app purchases. The on-screen labels are in Japanese.

For a first session, see Getting Started with StudyX Japanese Letters Table. For ways to use it day to day, see Everyday Ideas for StudyX Japanese Letters Table.