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そ and ソ

Pronunciation

“SO” sound in So.

These characters make a sound similar to the “So” in “Do re mi fa SO”, and interestingly, the same note is referred to as ソ in Japanese as well!

そ Memorization Story

For the hiragana そ, what I see is SOMEONE whistling the note ソ.

BUT, if you were to continue to draw the そ to its logical conclusion, you can almost see an angular, backward S, and an O, indicating “So”. Or a Z, and thus Zo… Which we can actually make this character sound like later on in the video when we learn some special rules.

ソ Memorization Story

The katakana ソ looks like the keyboard on a funky piano, where the keys are all diagonal and curvy. 

I don’t think I’d wanna play this keyboard.




Writing

 
 

The hiragana そ is essentially a small Z, with a curlicue beneath it. Thinking of it this way will help you write it more easily as well.

For the katakana ソ, because a look-alike will be showing up later, it’s important to focus on the fact that this is written nearly vertically, with both strokes being top to bottom.

Font Examples

そ　　ソ

そ　　ソ

そ　　ソ

そ　　ソ

そ　　ソ

Typing

Hiragana そ
Type the letters “so”.

Katakana ソ
Type "so" and press the F7 key, or press spacebar until the katakana appears. 

Word(s)

そこ

There (near the listener)

そうか

I see!

ソース

sauce

ソ

So (5th note in a moveable major scale)

 

Did you notice the う in そうか? Well, う performs the same job that this long guy: ー does for katakana, and い did for the い and え vowel sounds. う does this for the vowel sounds お and う. That means we read そうか like this:

そーか 

extending the お sound. NOT そ　う　か.  We’ll learn about extending the vowel sound あ later.

 

Historical Form

Hiragana
曽→そ

HISTORICAL VERSION

 

Katakana
曽→ソ

PART BORROWED

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