How many times I should write kanas?

[Zankes]

I bought my pass to this site ages ago, but then I became busy and now I have time again so I'll start from sracth

How many times I should write kanas while I practice? Any tips... and any good study methods like when I should study and how? I have basically free time everyday for few months for now so I could basically dedicate myself, but I need some tips for good study schedule and how often and how should I practice kana.... I'm not even sure for what answer I am looking, but someone could guide me and I would be happy.

EDIT: Also I'm wondering what is good method to remember kanas? Today I have gone through 5 kanas only and how I can keep them in my brains so that I will always remember them?

[mmmason8967]

I started the hiragana with あいうえお, writing them out until I could do them fairly easily, then I added かきくけこ and wrote all 10 out until I could do them fairly easily, then added さしすせそ and wrote all 15, and so on. It doesn't take very long until you can write all 50 of them. Then I repeated the process with katakana.

I try to make sure I write the complete kana out twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Now that I know them quite well, it takes hardly any time--maybe a couple of minutes.

I don't really have a study schedule, but I try to make sure that I find time each morning and evening to write out kana and do JPod101 flashcards. And I usually listen to a JPod101 audio lesson on the way to work and on the way back home. I also try to watch Japanese movies two or three times a week--I have a small collection, all of which I've seen several times, and each time I watch one of them there always seems to be something I understand that I didn't understand the last time I watched it.

マイケル

[Zankes]

I started the hiragana with あいうえお, writing them out until I could do them fairly easily, then I added かきくけこ and wrote all 10 out until I could do them fairly easily, then added さしすせそ and wrote all 15, and so on. It doesn't take very long until you can write all 50 of them. Then I repeated the process with katakana.

I try to make sure I write the complete kana out twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Now that I know them quite well, it takes hardly any time--maybe a couple of minutes.

I don't really have a study schedule, but I try to make sure that I find time each morning and evening to write out kana and do JPod101 flashcards. And I usually listen to a JPod101 audio lesson on the way to work and on the way back home. I also try to watch Japanese movies two or three times a week--I have a small collection, all of which I've seen several times, and each time I watch one of them there always seems to be something I understand that I didn't understand the last time I watched it.

マイケル

Thanks for the tips even though my grammar was quite bad.

I'll try your in the morning and evening repeating stuff. for now I remember 9 kanas, still practing slowly, but steadily. I repeat each kana about 200 times. (I wonder is it enough)

I have also found this useful, not sure if jpod has any similiar thing.

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sheaa/proje ... timer.html

even though I'm premium I haven't gone through stuff which I can do. Well I'll try my best.

PS: is that Many m in nicknames common in UK? I knew similiar sounding guy from games called Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.... and he was from UK too

[mmmason8967]

I'll try your in the morning and evening repeating stuff. for now I remember 9 kanas, still practing slowly, but steadily. I repeat each kana about 200 times. (I wonder is it enough)

Sounds like more than enough!

Check out the JapanesePod101 Kantan Kana video series. It shows you the correct stroke order for writing the kana, which is very important. Once you know how the kana are written, it's not too hard to read signs and posters even when they use heavily stylised fonts because most of the time they still follow the stroke-order rules for writing.

PS: is that Many m in nicknames common in UK?

It's just my real name: Michael M Mason, hence mmmason. And the マイケル that I sign my postings with is just Michael in katakana (maikeru).

マイケル

[Zankes]

Well I hope I can learn to read different fonts, I were shocked how different and weird some fonts looked even though they were supposed to be the same kanas and thanks for the awesome tips.
I hope someday I can be fluent, my dream is to do at least JLPT2, but we will see when that happens. If I'm lucky I might do jlpt5 on christmas? (In here Finland we have JLPT once a year)

Again thanks for the tips and info and if you have anything other related to this in your mind, please write more. I enjoyed reading your posts.


PS: I just thought the mmm thing was common in UK, hehe, sorry.

[ericf]

PS: I just thought the mmm thing was common in UK, hehe, sorry.

Not so common :)
http://youtu.be/tVvkRfKvH0Q

[Zankes]

I feel stupid to answer to myself, but here I go.

I have found kana quiz extremely useful it makes me feel more confident.

[community.japanese]

Zankes-san, マイケルsan, エリックsan,
kon'nichiwa

I often admire Japanese learners just considering hundreds of new letters you have to learn.
It seems all of you are doing great job!
Practice writing constantly is definitely the best learning method.
By the way, thank you for recommending Kantan Kana series, マイケルsan

Just like マイケルsan, I also watch TV dramas, sit-coms and any other shows in English to keep up my language skills.
It's half hobby and half work's sake for me
Zankes-san's case, you want to know the effective way to remember kana, so I think writing some words (not just kana in order) everyday would also help. When it's just "alphabets", it's not really fun; if you wirte them as words, it makes sense and you'll also learn new words. When you have enough vocab, you can start writing memo, schedule and so on in Japanese. My shopping lists often have several different languages on

Making "writing practice" more like "having fun" or even "a part of life" might let you feel less "task" or "obligation"

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[Zankes]

Thanks for the answer.

Writing words down with the symbols which I have already learned sounds really good, but would be tough to think which words I can write now that I know 18 hiraganas. Well I'll try it when I know them all
I don't know how much I can learn a day, but I'll try my best to learn as much as possible now that I am free for a while.

If this goes good as it has gone for now I'll apply for JLPT 5 on xmas, but 100 kanji seems kinda tough and that you need to know 1000 words, but I might make it and I might not, but I will decide it after few months can I apply for JLPT5, but we will see.

PS: there might be some writing errors which I didn't notice as I didn't sleep much. For example I wrote thought when I wanted to write tough, so please bare with me.

[community.japanese]

Zankes-san,
good luck with JLPT!

With 18 hiraganas, perhaps it's a bit difficult to start writing memos. But you can always cheat
Everything should be done at your own pace, so no need to rush anyway

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com