Hiragana

[samirouahi1666]

I jumped on the gun and bought premium for 2 years, because for now I have money.

Anyways I'm still a absolute beginner that knows a lot words for beginners, but I have hard time learning even Hiragana... What would be the best way to master Hiragana, katakana and then Kanji?

[wesleejr1893]

Way to go. Hope the site proves worthwhile to you.

Hm, the method I used isn't necessarily the "best" way but it seems to be the most frequently used practice from what I've seen - old-fashioned, repetitive writing. Sit down with a writing tool and paper and write the characters over and over and over. Tedious? Quite! Effective? It was for me.

I started with ひらがな(hiragana) and worked in sets, beginning with the "vowels" あ(a),　い(i),　う(u),　え(e), and お(o). First, learning the proper stroke order of the syllables and the correct pronunciation of each. I do believe JPod101 have videos showing how to properly write each of the syllables and definitely have sound clips of the way they are pronounced. My kana learning actually came before finding JapanesePod, so that's why I sound uncertain if they have writing tutorials. Anyway, after writing and learning the "vowels" from numerous sessions, it was on to the 'k' column (i.e. か(ka),　き(ki),　く(ku),　け(ke)　こ(ko)）. And then the 's' column, followed by the 't' column, and so on. As I wrote, I would say them out loud. To quiz myself, I made simple flashcards. Then, it was to do the whole process over again, but this time with the カタカナ(katakana) system.

漢字(kanji) is a different matter, and will take much longer to "master" compared to 'hiragana' and 'katakana'. Some suggest learning 'kanji' in context - learning them in words and remembering it in that form. Some also suggest instead of learning a 'kanji' and its multiple readings, you should focus on the general meaning of that kanji. For the most part, I agree with these suggestions, and personally, I'm using "Remembering the Kanji" by James W. Heisig to aid me in my learning, in addition to the tools on here, of course (do some research on Heisig's book if you like, it's not for everyone). But, as I said, kanji is going to take some time and because of that, I would say not to sweat it too much right now.

Primary focus should be on ひらがな　and　カタカナ for a while. Make sure you know those like the back of your hand, then you can worry about kanji. Good luck.

[dabates771395]

I totally agree there.. I was able to learn Hirgana pretty quick.. Katakana was a little harder for me to learn.. but I think I recognize and pronounce 99% of Hirgana and 95% of Katakana..

I'm holding off on Kanji until later.. that's a whole different beast right there.. There are some excellent resources that will help you quiz yourself online.. I won't link them here, as it's not this site, but you can PM me if you wish I 'll send it over ..

I used the quizzes (still) all the time.. keeps me sharp.

I also printed out business card sized flash cards that also help.

But I agree, most people don't talk about it, but I think learning the syllabary is a must before learning anything else.. but that's just my opinion.

デイブ

[community.japanese]

samirouahi1666-san, ウェズさん、デイブさん、
kon'nichiwa
Thank you for great advices, ウェズsan and デイブsan!!
samirouahi1666-san, thank you for 2-year subscription!!
Leaning writings is a long-term commitment, so don't worry if you feel you're taking too much time.
I often recommend to use Lesson Note. We have scripts of dialogs in kana (with kanji AND without kanji).
The best way to study those hiragana and katakana is to remember as word(s); if you study first 5 (あ　い　う　え　お),
you can already make many words like あい(= love), うえ(= up, above), いえ (= home), いいえ (= No), あお (= blue), etc.
When a word has meaning, it's easier and more fun to practice writing/memorising, right?

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[dannymoji4306]

Use a combination of audio and visual learning. rosetta stone and pimsluer for example. that helped me to Learn Japanese. also use Learn Japanese> Repetition works.

[community.japanese]

dannymoji4306-san,
that sounds nice. Thank you for sharing info with us!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[Sandman77]

I think using a game like Whiplash Japanese or Slime Forest is useful for just learning characters at the beginning. Plenty of repetition and not as boring. Useful for getting over the beginning reading "hump".

[community.japanese]

Sandman77-san,
thank you very much for sharing a good information!! It's always fun and really nice to have game style
when we study I love that!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com