I have a beginner question

[Ruki]

Watashi wa Ruki desu. I have just begun learning the language and wanted to know how everyone learned Kana. I find it hard to remember how to write them but when I see them I can recognize them. Any techniques or suggestions anyone can give me?

Arigatou gozaimasu. (did I spell 'arigatou' right?)

[Alan]

Writing them down repeatedly is the only way. Choose about 10 (or more if you like) a week and practice writing each in turn every day. Make sure you draw them in the correct stroke order each time. Writing down each of the 10 in turn is more effective in getting the stroke order into long term memory, then writing one character a couple of dozen times. Move on to the next 10 the next week, but also write down the previous 10 once per session to reinforce them.

Generally, lots of regular short periods of practice works better than one monster session per week, so if you can fit in half an hour of writing practice each day, that would be good.

Gambatte kudasai.
Alan

[tintinium]

Actually... a good way I found is by doing crosswords... Of course there are flashcard programs online... lots if you look, some better than others... I remember one made by dragonmedia was really good... which i found somewhere on nihongoresources.com.

What i mean by crosswords, is I took any word I knew in japanese (take tsunami for example and wrote it down...

つなみ

then I tried to think of a word with with either つ　な　or 　み。

つなみ
　　　ま
わたし
　　　たけのこ
　　　　　　　　ね
　　　　　　　　こ
　　　　　　　　ちかてつ
　　　　　　　　ゃ
　　　　　　　　ん

I would try to fill as much of a page and it got fun. Of course, I would also use made up words or just use katakana words like trying to tranliterate friend's names.

jo-n sumisu (jon smith) wa-ta- boteru (water bottle)

etc. etc. Especially ones I had trouble remembering... it's good to make words up, because like all languages, some characters aren't used as often (like nu in katakana, for example)

Sometimes I would also attach pictures... like in trying to remember the difference between さ　and ち
I would write さち　Satchi) and made a face out of it... add two dots in the circular part of the kana and draw a mouth below. Also ウcan be made to look like a rabbit (うさぎ・ウサギ）

Also シ　and ツ　I had an elaborate mental picture...
the two marks (ten ten) are laying down in one kana and standing up in the other... the standing up one looked like two people standing waiting for the つなみ　to come in. （ツナミ）　And the long stroke is right to left... the direction of the wave.

When you right the stroke from left to right, they are 死ぬ（しぬ・シヌ）　or dead. Kind of morbid I know... but it helped me set them apart... if you're not sure what I mean... i can explain further if you wish... but it's difficult when typing... and not writing it out...

hth,

Tintin

[jaypunkrawk]

Just keep at it. Flash cards are good...and definitely writing practice. You'll learn them fast. I think I learned all my hiragana in a span of 2 weeks in my Japanese class. I had previously learned katakana on my own. Now kanji's a different story.

がんばってね。

[Jason]

I agree with Alan-san. Writing them a lot is the way to go. The crossword puzzle thing could be good reinforcement, though.

[Abrassart]

I used a small program in retro-rpg. You can download it there for free:

http://lrnj.com/

I found it very usefull. You can learn also the meaning of a few Kanjis...

There is also this mini-game (very very kawai):

http://www.kanamichan.com/

It's in french, but it's so simple to use that I don't think it won't be any problem...

[Alain]

Go to http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/

Type katakana, or hiragana in the Search line, and you will find free widgets to learn the stroke order.

[phil478]

Hi,
once you memorized some kana, I found it usefull to read a lot of random texts.
Even if you don't understand the words, the sounds of the kana will come faster and faster while reading along.

(I'm scared of Kanji though)

[Bueller_007]

Hi,
once you memorized some kana, I found it usefull to read a lot of random texts.
Even if you don't understand the words, the sounds of the kana will come faster and faster while reading along.

(I'm scared of Kanji though)

Agreed.

One of the advantages of living in Japan is simply the amount of advertising on the trains. If you get bored, you just read an ad for "Kansai Walker" or something.

Good practice for the kana.