How I Learned Hiragana and Katakana in a Day Each for Free
Japanese is written in three different scripts: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Kanji are ideographic characters imported from ancient China. Meanwhile, Hiragana and Katakana are both phonetic writing systems similar to ours.
Hiragana and Katakana consist of 46 characters each. Each hiragana character has a katakana counterpart and vice versa. Six characters represent the vowel sounds a, i, u, e & o. The rest represent a combination of a consonant and vowel sound. Eg. き = ki, は = ha, etc.
Katakana is only used to write foreign loan words. While hiragana is used in every other case where kanji isn’t used. Thus, you should focus on mastering hiragana as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, katakana doesn’t need to be learnt as rapidly. Many katakana characters are similar to their hiragana counterparts so in effect you’ll be studying less than 46 characters.
The Process
I didn’t practice writing the same character over and over again like a pre-schooler who eventually starts crying from frustration (No, I’m not talking from experience). Given the number of kanji you’ll have to tackle next, you need to get used to learning characters in the most efficient way possible.
The technique is to associate the shape of a character with an object that represents its sound. For example, ら (ra) looks like a Rabit, き (ki) like a key and so on.
This approach is followed by JapanesePod101 for teaching hiragana and katakana for free on Youtube. Both videos are just about an hour-long each. The images they use are relatable and easy to remember. Check it out them out from the links below:
Final Touches
After you’ve initially learned the images, practice recalling them by looking at the characters. Once the characters are memorized you can start reading. Hiragana is one of the first things you’ll get used to since you’ll be seeing it all the time. You’ll forget the training wheel images in no time and know the characters by heart. Katakana will take a little longer (but nowhere near as long as kanji).
Hopefully learning an entirely new alphabet should no longer seem intimidating. Rather, it could even be fun. Get started with the links I shared above. Gambatte!
