Learn how to Study Hiragana and Katakana Quick: the Full Information to Two Key Japanese Writing Methods

Once you begin your Japanese studying journey, the very first thing that’s usually beneficial by textbooks and lecturers is to be taught hiragana and katakana, collectively referred to as the “kana.” 

I do know from private expertise that studying hiragana and katakana might be intimidating, however in the event you perceive the fundamentals and use the next strategies and assets, it abruptly begins to look much more easy.

Actually, with these beneficial strategies and assets, you may be taught to write down, kind and skim the Japanese kana with ease.

Contents

Obtain:
This weblog submit is obtainable as a handy and transportable PDF that you simply
can take wherever.
Click on right here to get a duplicate. (Obtain)

Kanji (漢字) are adopted Chinese language characters utilized in fashionable Japanese writing. Most Japanese phrases (nouns, adjectives and verbs) are written in kanji. There are about 50,000 kanji in Japanese.

There are not any areas in Japanese, so a brand new kanji helps distinguish when a brand new phrase begins. 

Kanji characters are symbols that characterize phrases. Consider ♥ as a kanji character that represents “love.” Do you perceive “I♥you”? How about, “You’reA★”?

These symbols perform identical to kanji. The extra kanji you be taught, the better studying Japanese turns into.

Nonetheless, immediately we’ll study studying Japanese with out kanji. You’ve acquired to begin someplace, proper?

On this submit, we’ll be specializing in hiragana and katakana, and for an excellent purpose! Hiragana and katakana include slightly fewer than 50 characters every. Don’t let this quantity overwhelm you, although. If you concentrate on it, between capital and lowercase letters, cursive and print, English has 104 totally different letter appearances in its alphabet, so this ought to be fairly manageable. 

All hiragana and katakana characters make phonetic sounds, identical to the English alphabet. Which means that こ makes the “ko” sound, ん makes the “n” sound, に makes the “ni” sound, ち is “chi”, and は on this state of affairs is pronounced as “wa.” Collectively, こんにちは reads as “konnichiwa.” Straightforward, proper? You’ll be able to even use hiragana to learn the sound of a kanji character.

Hiragana and katakana use the identical sounds, however have a unique set of characters.

Hiragana (ひらがな) is used primarily for grammatical functions. Bear in mind the image ♥ ? If you happen to wrote “♥ing” it’d be learn as “loving.” In Japanese the suffix “-ing” could be written in hiragana. Participles, expressions, and phrases with extraordinarily tough or uncommon kanji are principally written in hiragana.  Hiragana characters are simple to determine as a result of they’re often a bit curvy and look less complicated than kanji characters.

私の名前は優也です。
寿司を食べます。
英語は難しい…

There are some circumstances the place Japanese phrases use hiragana extra usually than kanji equivalent to かわいい (kawaii) or さようなら (sayonara).

Whereas katakana (カタカナ) represents the identical sounds as hiragana, it’s primarily used to characterize overseas phrases. International names are represented in katakana, as are many overseas meals. Japan’s enjoyable and quirky onomatopoeia seems in each katakana and hiragana. Katakana characters take a boxier type than hiragana characters do, and seem less complicated than kanji. Each katakana character has a hiragana counterpart that makes the identical sound.

レディー・ガガ (Girl Gaga)
ボン・ジョヴィ (Bon Jovi)
ジョン・スミス (John Smith)

The small circle in between the earlier names separates a primary title from a final title (or separates two names) so Japanese readers can inform the place a overseas title begins and ends.

ビールを飲んでみましょう！(Let’s drink beer!)
私はアメリカンフットボールが好きです！(I like American soccer*.)
マクドナルドで食べる。(Eat at McDonald’s.)

*American soccer can be referred to as アメフト.

As a result of these phrases aren’t native to Japan, they’re written in katakana. Many sound phrases (like sound results in manga or animal noises) are additionally written in katakana.

For Home windows Customers: CosCom Tutorial
For Mac Customers: CosCom Tutorial

A technique that I realized hiragana and katakana so simply was by typing in Japanese every time I had the chance. Whether or not you’re taking notes, writing to a pen pal or tweeting about how a lot you’re keen on FluentU, kind it in Japanese!

To kind in Japanese, choose Japanese enter in your pc. Kind as you often would in your regular (English) keyboard. So in the event you write “a” in your keyboard the character あ (which makes the identical phonetic sound) will seem. If you happen to kind “ko” the character こ will probably be created.

If you happen to’re glad with what you’ve written, hit “enter” in your keyboard. If you happen to’d like to alter the textual content from hiragana to katakana, press the “house key” in your keyboard. A drop-down menu ought to seem with an inventory of doable katakana to select from.

It will have you ever recognizing characters with hardly any effort. For extra detailed directions on the right way to kind in Japanese, you may take a look at CosCom’s Japanese typing tutorial or Redcocoon’s Japanese typing tutorial.

Chokochoko Library provides free downloads of brief Japanese tales with furigana, which is hiragana that seems over unfamiliar kanji characters, areas and translations. That is extraordinarily useful in the event you’re simply introducing your self to Japanese script.

The following textual content that’s extremely beneficial is Japanese Graded Readers. The arduous copy of Japanese Graded Readers consists of an assortment of books which might be separated into ranges. The newbie books have furigana, so readers who don’t know kanji fairly but can nonetheless learn with hiragana. The books additionally include audio as a way to hearken to a local speaker as you learn. Following together with the native speaker or mimicking them is nice for bettering the velocity at which you learn and communicate.

To recap, furigana is hiragana that’s displayed over kanji characters. That is particularly helpful for anybody who needs to be taught hiragana or kanji. A furigana plug-in in your net browser will can help you browse Japanese web sites and hover over phrases that you simply don’t know. Once you hover over an unfamiliar phrase, a hiragana and an English translation will seem. Furigana Inserter is one such plug-in for Firefox and Google Chrome.

If you happen to use an web browser that doesn’t help a furigana plug-in, then you need to use a furigana generator. Furigana mills are web sites that may take an online web page and insert furigana over any kanji. Hiragana Megane is a superb furigana generator.

With FluentU, you may watch movies with subtitles that use kanji with furigana, accompanied by English translations. The web site and app has a great deal of participating movies, together with flashcards and quizzes that will help you keep in mind each unknown phrase you come throughout.

Actual Kana is a flashcard maker that you need to use in your desktop (or on iOS cell). you select the hiragana or katakana characters that you simply’d like to check, and even permits its customers to pick out the font through which the Japanese characters will seem. Equally, Genki Self Examine has easy Japanese studying assets directed at those that try to be taught Japanese script. You’ll be able to quiz your self on hiragana and katakana by utilizing flashcards, video games or a listening quiz.

Lastly, when you’ll want to reference a dictionary, I like to recommend Japanese Dictionary (Mac) and Tangorin English ⇆ Japanese Dictionary.

Do you’ve a favourite research methodology? For me, writing and typing in Japanese are my favorites. Easy and straightforward, proper?

I hope that these strategies may help you learn and write like a professional! Attempt some (or all) of those strategies and see which one works for you. You’ll be stunned by how rapidly and simply studying katakana and hiragana might be.

Obtain:
This weblog submit is obtainable as a handy and transportable PDF that you simply
can take wherever.
Click on right here to get a duplicate. (Obtain)