Question Hiragana practice

[Haruto Uzumaki]

This is from me listening to a recording of myself over and over again

 

[Buntaro]

渦巻さん、

I, too, have an Oral-B toothbrush!

Yes, the next step is to randomly scramble the hiragana. Here are some examples. You can record them one hiragana at a time, two hiragana at a time, etc., all the way up to five hiragana at a time. Start with one hiragana at a time and see what works for you.

さかあたな
かなあさた
あなかたさ
たあさかな
なさあかた

You are ready to write words from 'dictation.'

あか red (the noun form; the adjective form is different)
かな 'kana'; hiragana and katakana spoken of as one group
かさ umbrella
かた'kata'; forms and techniques used in karate, etc.
さあ 'Saa…' an interjection in speech meaning something like, 'Well…'
なか middle; center
たな shelf
あさ morning
なな one way to say seven
さかな fish
たかさ height; elevation. Accent the first, not second syllable.

 

[Toritoribe]

View attachment 87312

As already suggested, how fast you can write them is not the point. It's far more important that you can write them correctly, and possibly beautifully. Sorry for saying this, but teachers would point out that your た is wrong in Japanese elementary school.

1)た: the third stroke (upper horizontal line on the right side) should be under the first stroke(the horizontal line in the left side).

Plus,
2)さ: the second and third strokes (the slash on the right side and lower left corner) are curved too much.

3)な: the last stroke (the lower one) is not like circle. The last line is closer to a straight line.


Also, I strongly recommend remembering each column as a set, like あいうえお, かきくけこ, さしすせそ etc., not like あかさたな, はまやらわ, as you are doing now. It's quite confusing which hiragana can take dakuten or handakuten in your way.
e.g.
かきくけこ (ka ki ku ke ko) --> がぎぐげご (ga gi gu ge go)
You can put dakuten on all "ka column" kana.

はひふへほ (ha hi fu he ho) --> ぱぴぷぺぽ (pa pi pu pe po)
You can put handakuten on all "ha column" kana.

あかさたな (a ka sa ta na) --> あがざだな (a ga za da na)
You can put dakuten on only かさた, and can't put on あ and な.


Here's a common way how Japanese children practice writing kana. You can download and print each pdf file, and can remember the correct form of each kana by tracing them.

ひらがな練習プリント 【五十音】

書き順つき、書き順なし、薄いなぞり文字、濃いなぞり文字など、お子さんに合ったプリントで、ひらがなを無理なく練習できます。

happylilac.net

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

渦巻さん、

I, too, have an Oral-B toothbrush!

Yes, the next step is to randomly scramble the hiragana. Here are some examples. You can record them one hiragana at a time, two hiragana at a time, etc., all the way up to five hiragana at a time. Start with one hiragana at a time and see what works for you.

さかあたな
かなあさた
あなかたさ
たあさかな
なさあかた

You are ready to write words from 'dictation.'

あか red (the noun form; the adjective form is different)
かな 'kana'; hiragana and katakana spoken of as one group
かさ umbrella
かた'kata'; forms and techniques used in karate, etc.
さあ 'Saa…' an interjection in speech meaning something like, 'Well…'
なか middle; center
たな shelf
あさ morning
なな one way to say seven
さかな fish
たかさ height; elevation. Accent the first, not second syllable.

文太郎先輩,

thanks for the vocab to use, I'll record me saying them and write them as I hear them. I am just a little confused on how I'm gonna randomize the characters in general so I don't get used to writing them in only one sequence. If I record them separately I think I'd still know which recording is which unless there was a way to shuffle the order in the recording list at will... I'll still do it, but I'll also look for possible websites that have all the syllables spoken in an easy to use interface where I can have it speak random characters to me for me to write. I think that would be more effective, and easier to accomplish since it would take less time than recording it myself. We'll see though

Also, today I took care of 99% of my name change! My name is officially Haruto Uzumaki and all I need to do is get fingerprinted for it to be approved!

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

It's far more important that you can write them correctly, and possibly beautifully.

Yeah, you're right about that I struggle with this even in writing English (my native language), I don't know if it's something wrong with me or what but I had to get extra practice a lot with my dad just to write properly... And I also have to leave it to muscle memory, which I know sounds weird, but for certain characters like "W", I actually can't write it slow I don't know if you experience this too but the speed of my writing is so my strokes will be more accurate cause when I write faster my hand basically knows where to go, but when I write slower, my mind has to visualize the character, and that throws it off even more than if I wrote it blindly without giving my brain a chance to think about it. I did try to write them slow at first, but it's actually way worse than what you've seen here which is why I don't anymore. For example, the only way I can write あ even remotely close to correctly, is for the last stroke to be done quickly. If I do it slow, the proportions are gonna be all off, and the strokes won't meet anywhere close to where they're supposed to meet. I'll show you examples if you wish so you can see what I'm talking about

Sorry for saying this, but teachers would point out that your た is wrong in Japanese elementary school.

It's okay, I can agree and for that character it's definitely a hit or miss, sometimes I get it right but a lot of times I don't cause the smaller strokes are really difficult to make correctly, and the proportions are even more difficult to accurately draw...

1)た: the third stroke (upper horizontal line on the right side) should be under the first stroke(the horizontal line in the left side).

2)さ: the second and third strokes (the slash on the right side and lower left corner) are curved too much.

I'm aware of these mistakes, I'll keep writing an extra amount of them so that I can make more accurate characters. It would also really really help if I could find traceable characters like we had in kindergarten. It just seems to not be a thing in Japan or something for learning Japanese... Haven't really found a good chart with all characters I can trace.

3)な: the last stroke (the lower one) is not like circle. The last line is closer to a straight line.

Yeah, my hand keeps wanting to write it more like a 2 instead, probably cause I'm used to writing 2 more, but I also (in my inexperienced opinion...) find this to be somewhat a stylistic choice depending on the font, cause it doesn't truly take away from the recognition that it's な and it's quite a small difference, but I'm inexperienced with Japanese, so maybe writing it that way is really off to Japanese masters

Also, I strongly recommend remembering each column as a set, like あいうえお, かきくけこ, さしすせそ etc., not like あかさたな, はまやらわ, as you are doing now.

I would've, and I technically have already, it's just the chart I used to cut the characters from to make my writing repetition book had confusing text that made me put the characters in the wrong order. It told me to read down and to the left, but I didn't understand that I was supposed to read all the way down the column first and then to the next column of characters, so I ended up putting them in my book in the order of right to left rows if you think it'll benefit me, I'll skip to each hiragana in the column instead of the way I glued them in the book, but I already learned them in the correct order first, I simply glued them in the wrong order (and I forgot the order anyway, which is how I made the mistake in the first place so I doubt I'll remember it this way either...), besides, ↓

You can put dakuten on only かさた, and can't put on あ and な.

I already know which ones can have dakuten and handakuten since I learned all the characters separately, regardless of if they could have them or not. This way, I just know that for example "ka" can also be "ga" with the dakuten marking or "he" can be "pe" with the handakuten symbol. The order I learned them didn't affect this, since the association comes not from the order but the simple visual difference of just an extra marking. But, like I said, if you think it will benefit me still, I'll definitely skip pages to make sure I learn to write them in the column order instead of the row order

 

[Toritoribe]

It would also really really help if I could find traceable characters like we had in kindergarten. It just seems to not be a thing in Japan or something for learning Japanese... Haven't really found a good chart with all characters I can trace.

Er,,, this is exactly what you are looking for, no?

Here's a common way how Japanese children practice writing kana. You can download and print each pdf file, and can remember the correct form of each kana by tracing them.

ひらがな練習プリント 【五十音】

書き順つき、書き順なし、薄いなぞり文字、濃いなぞり文字など、お子さんに合ったプリントで、ひらがなを無理なく練習できます。

happylilac.net

You can find many other pdf files, for example lager ones, hiragana words, katakana, etc. in the following site. (These are exactly for Japanese kindergarten kids.)

ひらがな練習プリント-幼児教材・知育プリント｜ちびむすドリル【幼児の学習素材館】

幼児～就学ごろのお子様のひらがな練習プリントです。季節・行事の出来事や身近な物事に関するイラストつき学習プリントで、楽しく文字の練習ができます。

happylilac.net

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

Er,,, this is exactly what you are looking for, no?

Oh I'm so sorry for some reason I only looked at what you said and not the link, I don't know why I just skipped it, thanks so much!

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

I think I'm not used to the way links appear in this forum, cause I've been using discord so much and that's pretty much the only other place I talk to people on I'm really sorry about that, I'm gonna check the website now and print out anything I can use!

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

@Toritoribe yes, this website is even better than what I was looking for! Thanks so much! Only thing is I'm gonna have to print it at work tomorrow so my dad doesn't get upset that I'm using his printer and ink so I'll make sure to get practicing tomorrow at work! Hopefully the tracing will greatly improve my accuracy and form (I believe it will ) Thanks again!

 

[Buntaro]

渦巻さん、

The best thing to do is to forget about doing dictation practice with random hiragana. Just do dictation practice with the words I gave you.

あか
かな
かさ
かた
さあ
なか
たな
あさ
なな
さかな
たかさ

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

渦巻さん、

The best thing to do is to forget about doing dictation practice with random hiragana. Just do dictation practice with the words I gave you.

あか
かな
かさ
かた
さあ
なか
たな
あさ
なな
さかな
たかさ

文太郎先輩、

Alright, I can handle that for sure! I'll come back with all these (properly) written soon might take a few days of extra handwriting practice with those traceables first

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

I have discovered a word that helped me tremendously with finding music friends like me! In Japan, they call it "DTMers" which is what I am I'm seeing a lot of communities based on "DTM" and I'll be joining up and seeing what they have to offer, as well as the people I get to meet!

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

I lost a $300 sale today, because as I was packaging my MIDI keyboard to ship to someone who bought it, my table rocked and the MIDI keyboard slipped off and got damaged... RIP keyboard
I was gonna use the money to replace it with a new one, cause although it was in perfect condition with all accessories and original packaging, there was a newer MIDI keyboard that came out specifically for the software I use (FL Studio) which made it multitudes easier to make music with it... And since it was smaller I'd be able to take it with me... But oh well, now I'm gonna have to replace it regardless and that means not only $300 lost but an extra amount (~$200) to get the new one :/
Just wanted to share that update since the leftover money was gonna be part of my Japan savings

Aside from that, yesterday I finally got a lot of stuff printed at work after finding a printer nobody was near. I printed out the entire Genki I textbook, workbook, and answer key. I also printed out the traceables @Toritoribe sent me (thanks again and sorry again), so I'll be using those and mastering the form of my characters before I start writing hiragana again. I also joined some servers and met someone that I get to talk to in Japanese and English regularly, so I'm learning a lot from that too

 

[mdchachi]

The keyboard is a complete loss? Unrepairable?

By the way, after you get your hiragana and katakana capability down, I suggest looking at Wanikani. The first three levels are free. It doesn't help with grammar but it helps with kanji recognition and some vocabulary.

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

The keyboard is a complete loss? Unrepairable?

It's usable, but it's not possible to be sold anymore, at least not nearly for the value it once was before it dropped... Once you do things like drop keyboards and there's visibly damaged parts people don't want to buy it anymore because they don't want there to be any broken feature they might want to use, and they don't want things to not work correctly, so by dropping it I not only broke some of the mixer sliders (caps came off and the metal things under them bent horrifically) but I also just sealed the fate of the keyboard because I can no longer guarantee that it'll function as intended... It's like if you hit your head, maybe at first you can't say there's something wrong but you can't trust that there's nothing wrong because something could go wrong down the line because of the hit :/ all this basically to say, it's easier for someone to buy a new one or one that has never been dropped or damaged, for the same price... I could maybe squeeze $70 out of it if I was lucky but I haven't even seen a single damaged AKAI MPK249 keyboard for sale, only ones in good condition, so that tells you how strict buyers are about it :/

capability down, I suggest looking at Wanikan

Sure thing, I'll check it out when I get the chance! And to everyone I'm about to post another update ↓

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

I'm sorry that I've been away for a long time, but a lot of things happened... I got sick, and for some reason I had the worst back pain I've ever experienced in my life because of it, then I nearly passed out at work from the sickness due to the worst stomach pain in my life, where in this moment it got extremely hard to breathe and I could barely see (black and white and extremely bright) so I grabbed the wall and door and slowly fell to the floor, and luckily I work in the hospital so they rushed me to the ER, my blood pressure was really high (191/140) but it was probably just shock from the event. Anyway, after that, they took my temperature and I had a fever of 103.1°F, which was very persistent and took a lot of medicine to get down to 99.9°F. It wasn't too bad after that but I was of course still sick (plus after I got home my fever went right back up to 103 again), and a multitude of other symptoms like my head and eyes hurting, weren't making it any better, but at least my lungs weren't completely filled like mucus like they normally would be from something like a flu... They gave me a COVID test to rule it out but the doctor didn't think I had it, and my oxygen was fine (while in the ER at least).
I went home that night, and the next afternoon the results came back as positive...
Well, I gotta say, the worst thing about COVID for me isn't the breathing or the coughing or any of that. For me, the back pain was the second worst pain I've ever experienced, the first being my PCL in my knee getting torn and living with that for a month without knowing. The respiratory stress is near the bottom of the list of terrible things about this disease for me, and is so much less compared to the flu for me, but that's just my experience. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you guys what happened to me recently and why I've been gone. I've still been focusing on Japanese and learning more bits and pieces, although my brain is also fried from the sickness (I think the fever is damaging my brain actually, I've had the headache for 4 days straight and I'm having a lot more random muscle spasms than before) so I just pretty much spent the day downloading as many japanesepod101 videos as I could before my subscription ends in 2 days I'll be back then if I'm any better. Hope you guys are doing better than me

 

[mdchachi]

I'm sorry that I've been away for a long time, but a lot of things happened... I got sick, and for some reason I had the worst back pain I've ever experienced in my life because of it, then I nearly passed out at work from the sickness due to the worst stomach pain in my life, where in this moment it got extremely hard to breathe and I could barely see (black and white and extremely bright) so I grabbed the wall and door and slowly fell to the floor, and luckily I work in the hospital so they rushed me to the ER, my blood pressure was really high (191/140) but it was probably just shock from the event. Anyway, after that, they took my temperature and I had a fever of 103.1°F, which was very persistent and took a lot of medicine to get down to 99.9°F. It wasn't too bad after that but I was of course still sick (plus after I got home my fever went right back up to 103 again), and a multitude of other symptoms like my head and eyes hurting, weren't making it any better, but at least my lungs weren't completely filled like mucus like they normally would be from something like a flu... They gave me a COVID test to rule it out but the doctor didn't think I had it, and my oxygen was fine (while in the ER at least).
I went home that night, and the next afternoon the results came back as positive...
Well, I gotta say, the worst thing about COVID for me isn't the breathing or the coughing or any of that. For me, the back pain was the second worst pain I've ever experienced, the first being my PCL in my knee getting torn and living with that for a month without knowing. The respiratory stress is near the bottom of the list of terrible things about this disease for me, and is so much less compared to the flu for me, but that's just my experience. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you guys what happened to me recently and why I've been gone. I've still been focusing on Japanese and learning more bits and pieces, although my brain is also fried from the sickness (I think the fever is damaging my brain actually, I've had the headache for 4 days straight and I'm having a lot more random muscle spasms than before) so I just pretty much spent the day downloading as many japanesepod101 videos as I could before my subscription ends in 2 days I'll be back then if I'm any better. Hope you guys are doing better than me

Sorry to hear you got ill. I hope you recover completely. Long-haul Covid is scary especially since there's not much you can do about it.

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

Sorry to hear you got ill. I hope you recover completely. Long-haul Covid is scary especially since there's not much you can do about it.

Thanks, I believe I'll recover fully soon, but it has gotten pretty annoying to deal with so far... And my hiring manager is waiting for me to come back on Saturday as soon as I get a negative test

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

New update though guys, I managed to download every single video (except one that was broken and wouldn't play) on japanesepod101.com, with hours to spare now I have on demand access permanently to every lesson they've ever made up to that day, so I can learn at my own pace when I have time without worrying about my subscription ending best thing is, it was the $1 subscription so I paid $1 for 1,072 extensively knowledgeable videos!
and with that, I went back to practicing handwriting again! Here is my progress:

 

[Buntaro]

渦巻さん、

Congratulations on learning to write the A group: あいうえお and the KA group: かきくけこ. It is time for you to do some 'dictation practice.' Record yourself saying the following hiragana words, then play them back and write them as you hear them. (If you would like to have a Japanese person record their voice saying these words, let us know and we'll see what we can do.)

These examples contain what I call 'long syllables' and 'short syllables'. For example, こ is a 'short syllable' and こう is a 'long syllable.' The word ここ is a two-syllable word and こうこう is a word that takes up the amount of time it takes to pronounce four 'short syllables.' In other words, it takes twice as long to say こうこう as it takes to say ここ.

Words with あ and い

1. あい love (n.)
2. いい one way to say "good"

Words with う

3. う cormorant (type of bird)
4. あう meet (v.) (plain form)
5. いう say (plain form; pronounced like the English word "you")

Words with え

6. え painting (n., as in to paint a painting)
7. えい the first kanji in the word for "England"
8. いいえ no
9. うえ up; upwards

Words with お

10. お tail (on an animal)
11. おう king; ruler
12. おおい many
13. あおい blue
14. あいうえお The A hiragana

Words with か

15. か mosquito
16. かい shellfish
17. かう buy (plain form)
18. かお face (n.)
19. いか squid (a popular type of seafood)

Words with き

20. き tree
21. きき Kiki (name of an anime character)
22. あき autumn
23. えき train station
24. かき oyster
25. おき oki; first kanji in the name "Okinawa "
26. おおきい large
27. きかい opportunity

Words with く

28. く one way to say nine
29. いく go (plain form)
30. かく write (plain form)
31. おく put (plain form; as in to put it on a table)
32. くうき air
33. くうかい Kukai (9th century Buddhist monk and inventor of hiragana)
34. きくask; listen (plain form)
35. おく Oku (a neighborhood in the North part of Tokyo)
36. えき train station
37. おく えき Oku Train Station

Words with け

38. け hair
39. いけ pond

Words with こ

40. こく one way to say "country"
41. こうくう airline
42. えいこく England
43. くうこう airport
44. ここ here; this place
45. こうこう high school
46. おく こうこう Oku High School
47. けいこ Keiko (girl's name)
48. こいけ Koike (family name)
49. こいけ けいこ (full name Koike Keiko; in Japanese, family names come first.)
50. かきくけこ The KA hiragana

 

[Toritoribe]

Just a few notes:

1)
The beginning of the third stroke of あ is usually cross over the rounded part of it.

2)
The end of the first stroke of い is "hane". You can see はねる in some pdf files I provided you, which means you stop the stroke, and then jump upward. Thus, it's not a single round stroke like し or つ. Non-native learners tend to write hane too large. No hane is often better than too large hane. The same goes with the third stroke of き, the first stroke of け, the first stroke of こ, the second stroke of さ, etc.

3)
You seem to have a tendency to write the second stroke of い on a too high position.


These are for beautiful writings. Your hiragana looks better than the previous ones.

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

文太郎先輩、

Record yourself saying the following hiragana words, then play them back and write them as you hear them.

Thanks, I'm about to start now! I think I can get through all 50 lines of characters wish me luck!

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

The beginning of the third stroke of あ is usually cross over the rounded part of it.

I tried to get it as close as possible to the tracing, but it seems I'll just have to keep writing more to get any closer to a proper あ

The end of the first stroke of い is "hane".

Yeah, I saw in the tracing paper about that, but it's really hard to do it, especially with the friction of the paper I don't know why my hand keeps curving it too but it's easier than when I try to stop because when I stop then I usually angle the hane wrong...

No hane is often better than too large hane.

I'll do this for now when writing hiragana for a professional, business or communication purpose, until I learn to master the hand movement required to make that part of the stroke correctly

You seem to have a tendency to write the second stroke of い on a too high position.

I agree this is actually one of the hardest hiragana characters for me because it's two curves and they're both small, so I don't have much reference to go off of for the proportions and ratio between the two pieces

Your hiragana looks better than the previous ones.

Thanks! I hope I continue to improve with every writing session!

 

[Haruto Uzumaki]

(If you would like to have a Japanese person record their voice saying these words, let us know and we'll see what we can do.)

I used a Japanese text to speech website (after finding the translators sounded like garbage for some reason) so I wouldn't have to spend lots of time and space recording, but the result is having to add distractions (I had to put 1234567890 after each word to make it give me enough time before the next word) and I ended up missing a lot of words because I didn't hear it between the numbers or I was still writing a previous one well, anyway, here are the results... Not too good.

My marker was also drying out and making the friction worse anyway,
If anyone knows of a good text to speech where I can insert space to make it take longer to tell me the next word, let me know. I'll do this again soon... Hopefully with better results

 

[Buntaro]

渦巻さん、

I'm a bit confused as to your progress. Were you able to listen to and write out all the words in my post #45?