日本語

[Nick]

The next 5 characters represent the consonant 'm' followed by each vowel in turn.
Today's characters are:
ま (hiragana) and マ (katakana): say "ma".
We write them like this.

[Nick]

We have reached "mi":
み (hiragana) and ミ (katakana): say "mi".
They are written this way.

[Nick]

Today's characters:
む (hiragana) and ム (katakana): say "mu" (or actually "moo" but with shortened "oo").
They are written thus.

[Nick]

Today's characters are:
め (hiragana) and メ (katakana): say "me" (with a short 'e').
They are written like this.

[Nick]

Today, we memorize "mo":
も (hiragana) and モ (katakana): say "mo" (but with a short 'o').
Writing them is done like this.

We now have all 5 characters associated with m plus a vowel:
まみむめも and マミムメモ: ma mi mu me mo.

[Nick]

It's time for the consonant 'y'. As the sounds "yi" and "ye" do not occur in native Japanese words
(in modern Japanese anyway), we only have characters for "ya", "yu" and "yo".

Today's characters are:
や (hiragana) and ヤ (katakana): say "ya".
We write them like this.

[Nick]

Today's characters are:
ゆ (hiragana) and ユ (katakana): say "yu".
They are written thus.