Kana, Kanji, order of learning?(beginner)

[Oris]

Hi, i'm new to this website and to learning japanese. I'm russian but live in the US, so i'm already bilingual and i feel that japanese will be a good challenge for me. I have browsed almost all of the sections of this website, listened to some podcasts and i don't think there's a better place on the internet for learning japanese than this

But because i don't know any of japanese words, nor how to write in kana or kanji i have some general questions about starting to learn the language.

1. What writing system should i learn first? And how do i know what writing system the characters i see belong to?
- When i go to Transcript section in a lesson i see 漢字版, then ひらがなばん, then Romaji, then English. I'd guess the first two mean Katakana and Hiragana, but which one of them should i pay attention? What characters should i memorize and learn first?
- Media. What writing system do japanese use in newspapers, websites, books etc.?

2. What's the standard order of learning japanese language + reading and writing? And how would you suggest me use this website to get on the right path of learning? I mean what's the best way to combine listening to podcasts, practicing writing and memorizing words? Thank you

[Jason]

The usual suggested order in learning the character sets, which I happen to agree with, is first hiragana, then katakana, then kanji. Learning kanji is an ongoing thing.

漢字版 = kanji version. ひらがなばん = hiragana version. I very strongly suggest avoiding rouma-ji as much as possible. It's acceptable to use it when you're first learning, but once you learn hiragana you should completely avoid rouma-ji.

With the exception of children's books which are writen in all hiragana, pretty much all other media uses a combination of all 3 writing systems.

To start off, you should focus on learning kana (hiragana and katakana). Start listening to the survival phrases lessons and memorizing phrases. It's ok if you really don't understand the workings of the phrases yet. Start listening to the early beginner lessons. Even if you don't understand the dialogues, you need to get used to how the language sounds. Once you've got hiragana and katakana down, really start digging into the grammar and vocab in the beginner lessons. At the same time, start learning kanji. I seriously suggest learning them in context of words and sentences instead of individually. You should get familiar with the general meaning of the individual characters though.

Others may have more suggestions and eveyone learns differently. But these are my suggestions.

[Joey]

Japanese has 3 main scripts: hiragana (their basic alphabet), katakana (their alphabet used for foreign words), and kanji (the 2000 or so Chinese characters). Japanese is usually written with a mixture of hiragana and kanji (hiragana used for verb endings and particles and words not writen in kanji characters and kanji for everything else) with katakana used for any foreign words and i think some other things like company names but i'm not certain about that.
For the transcript: 漢字版 is the transcript with the kanji in it and ひらがなばん is the transcript written only in hiragana. You can tell the 3 appart by: kanji are the complex looking characters, hiragana are the relatively low stroke count curvy symbols, and katakana are the low stroke count rigid characters.
When starting out you should probably start with hiragana, then katakana, and then tackle the kanji. You should probably start out with hiragana instead of katakana because of the practicality of it: katakana is only used for a small scope of things while most all Japanese writings are just hiragana and kanji (and for practice you could read some children's books which contain no kanji at all).
I can't think of any site online off the top of my head that you can learn hiragana from, but a quick google search could yield some good results. Also i would recomend checking out some books from your local library that teach hiragana and katakana because often a book will be more informative than a website. I also believe that under the premium subscription section of this site they have some material to learn hiragana (and they have the sound of each character too) Hope this is helpful!

[Joey]

It looks like Jason-san beat me to it
Thats okay though, just listen to Jason-san and forget what i wrote (Jason-san's the master)

[Jason]

This site has kana stroke order animations. There are kana charts with audio and practice charts you can print out in the learning center here.

[seanolan]

Just a tiny note: for anyone trying to learn "survival Japanese," where you are doing a month or so crash course to get by for a bit in Japan, reverse the order of learning the kana. Learn katakana first, then worry about hiragana. "What? That's crazy! Katakana aren't used that much!" I can hear the language purists screaming. Ah, but in public venues, they are everywhere - billboards, marquees, etc You will get so much more mileage from katakana knowledge in Japan if your vocabulary is not large. Why? Because you will, with some effort, be able to puzzle out any word written in katakana, and often translate it to English even if you have never seen the word before. Most loan words do come from English, and if you can get used to the conversion conventions, you can read almost 60-70% of katakana as English.

So, if you are looking to do a crash course, for short-term gain, learn katakana first. For any other reason of learning Japanese, learn hiragana first (or even better, alongside).

Sean

[Bueller_007]

I think people should learn katakana first, regardless.

The shapes are easier to remember for most people, and you can actually see that you're making progress because you can instantly understand most of the katakana words that you read. Also, as sean said, katakana is *much* more useful to you on the ground in Japan.

Hiragana forms are more difficult to remember, and since you've got no Japanese vocab at that early stage, you don't know if you're even reading hiragana words correctly.

Having to learn an entirely different system of writing can seem overwhelming. Learning katakana first makes you think "I *can* do this."

[Oris]

Wow, thank you everybody for replies I feel more confident now. I just started learning hiragana using Kana Recognition Practice, and i really didn't expect it to be that easy, i mean, in about hour or less i remembered all the sounds starting with k, s, h, m + a,i,e,u,o. Jason, thank you for the link, i'm practicing writing with the help of that website.

Well, if i go on with this pace i hope i'll remember hiragana in a week or so, and then start katakana. Sean and Bueller, thanks for the tip, but i think i'll stick with more conventional method : hiragana, then katakana I already feel that "I *can* do this."

And one more thing, if i have other questions(yes i search before asking) do i post them in this topic or make a new one? Thanks

[Bueller_007]

If you're going to end up learning them both anyway, I don't see any reason to start with hiragana. Japanese kids learn it first because the vast majority of vocab that they know are hiragana words. As foreigners, the vast majority of words that we know are katakana words.

To me, it makes much more sense to learn katakana first. But to each, their own.

[Oris]

If you're going to end up learning them both anyway, I don't see any reason to start with hiragana. Japanese kids learn it first because the vast majority of vocab that they know are hiragana words. As foreigners, the vast majority of words that we know are katakana words.

To me, it makes much more sense to learn katakana first. But to each, their own.

Well, you see, right now while i'm learning the language on this web-site, i see much more of hiragana than katakana in the lessons notes. I don't deny that katakana is used more widely but I'll stick with hiragana for now and a little later start katakana

[Suzu]

Media such as Anime, Movies in japanese with subtitles are very good way to get your pronunciation up there. I seldom spoke with native speakers and when I did, that was after a year or so of me getting into Manga, Anime. I always get that I have no accent whatsoever, I can thank largely Anime for that, plus the listening comprehension of many types of japanese speech, be it in Kansai-ben, formal, informal. Right now I am getting serious about learning. Fact that I have pretty big/broad vocabulary thanks to Anime is really helpful.

I am Russian as well, coincidence heh.

Just a warning though, Anime, Manga is in no way going to teach you everything, it's just supplemental. What worked for me, may not work for you.

Starting to study seriously now, it's apparent that my knowledge is fragmented, (know some advanced concepts, yet screwing up basic grammar is rather embarrassing :0 )

gelau tebe udachi, po ruski ne mogu normalno sdes pechatat. nadeyus eto mogno chetat kak ni bud :k