Japanese Vocabulary Building: Words with one character. "あ" から "と" まで みなさん、こんにちは。 あさこです。 Have you already memorised all hiragana/katakana? If yes, let's expand your vocabularies with them. I'll tell you one-character-word today. Use them when you play shiritori to annoy others! :-))) ** shiritori : a word game in Japan in which one player has to say a word（noun only) starting with the last syllable of the word given by the previous player. if you say a word ending with "ん", you loose. e.g. あめ(rain) --> めろ"ん"(melon) <-- you loose!! I'll write its kanji as well, but you don't need remember them so far. I'll just do it because I just want you to know that we have homonyms and we distinguish them by its kanji. Here we go :-) あ / ア [ a ] - I can't recall any nouns. Sorry. い / イ [ i ] - 胃 Stomach, the internal organ in which the major part of the digestion of food. う / ウ [ u ] - 鵜 Cormorant, a bird which has a long neck and this is a kind of pelicans. え / エ [ e ] - 絵 Picture / drawing / painting お / オ [ o ] - 尾 Tail ( we call it "しっぽ” as well. ) か / カ [ ka ] - 蚊 Mosquito, a bug, blood-eater. き / キ [ ki ] - 木 Tree. く / ク [ ku ] - Can't recall any. Sorry. け / ケ [ ke ] - 毛 Hair / Fur こ / コ [ ko ] - 子 Child. さ / サ [ sa ] - Can't recall any, sorry. し / シ [ shi ] - 死 Death / 市 City / 詩 Poem す / ス [ su ] - 巣 Nest, a place made or chosen by a bird or bug or animal for laying eggs or babies and sheltering its young: / 酢 Vinegar, a sour-tasting liquid. せ / セ [ se ] - Can't recall any, sorry. そ / ソ [ so ] - Can't recall any, sorry. た / タ [ ta ] - 田 Rice-field. ( we call it "たんぼ” as well) ち / チ [ chi ] - 血 Blood つ / ツ [ tsu ] - Can't recall any, sorry. て / テ [ te ] - 手 Hand と / ト [ to ] - 戸 Door There might be more nouns for these one character, but I wrote just one or two which probably most Japanese native speaker would recall immediately.　 I omitted any nouns which can be misunderstood because my poor English, sorry! では、また！