Learn the Katakana N column
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| Hi everyone! Welcome to BASIC JAPANESE WRITING. The fastest, easiest and most fun way to master the Japanese alphabet! |
| You've learned these 20 katakana characters in the previous lessons. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn the five katakana characters of the N column. |
| ナニヌネノ |
| The first katakana character for this lesson is ナ. ナ. |
| Think of ナ as a curved *KNI*FE. |
| Katakana ナ is written in 2 strokes. |
| The first stroke is a long horizontal line going from left to right. |
| The second stroke starts from the top, cuts through the first stroke in the middle, then curves down to the left. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| Ok, next up is the katakana character ニ. ニ. |
| Remember the hiragana に? Just remove this part and make the lines straight and you get the katakana ニ. |
| Katakana ニ is written in 2 strokes. |
| It is just 2 parallel horizontal lines, each going from left to right. |
| However, note that the second stroke is slightly longer. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| The third one is the katakana ヌ. ヌ. |
| Try to think of it as a *NOO*SE. |
| Katakana ヌ is written in 2 strokes. |
| The first stroke starts as a horizontal line then turns sharply to make a curved diagonal going to the bottom left. |
| The second stroke is a short diagonal stroke cutting through the curve of the first stroke. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| Katakana ネ is written in 4 strokes. |
| The first stroke is a short slanted stroke. |
| The second stroke starts as a horizontal line then turns and makes a curved diagonal line going down to the left. |
| The third stroke starts from the middle of the curved part of the second stroke and goes straight down. |
| The fourth stroke is a short diagonal line starting from here. It is about the same length of this part of the second stroke. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| And our final character for this lesson is the katakana ノ. ノ. |
| It's easy to remember this one. It's a "NO" sign just like its hiragana counterpart but without the circle. |
| Katakana ノ is written in 1 stroke. |
| It's just a curved diagonal line starting from the top right going down to the bottom left. |
| Ok, let's see it again. |
| Let's see all the characters again. ナ, ニ, ヌ, ネ, ノ. |
| Quiz time! |
| Now, let's review what you've learned. I'll show you a character or a word and give you time to say them. Ready? |
| ノ. |
| ろ. |
| ニ. |
| シ. |
| さ. Try not to confuse it with ち. |
| ナ. |
| ぽ. |
| ツナ. It's a "tuna fish." |
| ネタ. This is the material or punchline of a joke. |
| ノート. This actually means "notebook." |
| シニア. This refers to elderly people. |
| カヌー. It means "canoe." |
| ネット. This means "the internet." |
| ニコニコ. This means "smiling from ear to ear." |
| デザイナー. It means "designer." |
| Great job! As you can see, so many foreign words end up as katakana words, you'll be tempted to just translate English words into the katakana syllabary all the time. However, not all loan words catch on in Japanese. Make sure to learn more Japanese words first. |
| Ok, let's wrap up this lesson by recapping what you've learned. |
| In this lesson, you learned the katakana characters ナ, ニ, ヌ , ネ, and ノ. |
| よくできました！You've now mastered 71 Japanese characters. |
| Do you know how foreign words with an "F" sound is written in Japanese? Find out how in the next lesson, when we head to the H column. |
| Before you go, practice writing the following words on your own! |
| [pause] |
| And to learn MORE Japanese, go to JapanesePod101.com. |
| Are you just beginning to learn Japanese? Do you know what the most important, most used words are? Find out with our Japanese Core 100 list! Study the 100 most common and useful words in the Japanese language! Learn how to properly pronounce, spell and read Japanese vocabulary...all for free! |
| See you in the next lesson! またね！ |
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