Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji?
- Thread starter いぬがみ-
- Start date
いぬがみ-?525081 said:
That sure is the order in which Japanese kids learn written Japanese.
I've met some North Americans online who said they learned katakana first. But I don't understand it. I wonder if someone (some book or website) is promoting that katakana-first order.
tokapi
後輩
- 8 Sep 2007
- 850
- 5
My intuition is non-East Asians believe since 片仮名 represents Japanese transliteration of many English words in the language therefore it's a good starting point.
Since about 30% of modern Japanese consists of Katakana, my Japanese teacher says it would be preferable to learn Katakana before Hiragana. Many people have a little trouble reading Katakana for a long time, one reason might be that they focused on Hiragana first. But I think either way is OK, won't be much of a difference later on.
- 8 Aug 2005
- 7,316
- 3,727
Hiragana, katakana and kanji are all used in written Japanese.
hiragana is needed for grammar and vocabulary, as well as reading furigana, whereas katakana is just used for specific vocabulary (and 30% is a high estimate) like foreign names and loan-words. Hiragana is more vital to learning grammar than katakana, so I don't know why anyone would start with katakana. To beginners, katakana is pretty much only useful for writing your own name or simple vocabulary like パン、ベッド、チーズ etc.
The reason people have a hard time reading katakana is not because they focused on hiragana first, but because they didn't focus on katakana enough. It comes with practice.
hiragana is needed for grammar and vocabulary, as well as reading furigana, whereas katakana is just used for specific vocabulary (and 30% is a high estimate) like foreign names and loan-words. Hiragana is more vital to learning grammar than katakana, so I don't know why anyone would start with katakana. To beginners, katakana is pretty much only useful for writing your own name or simple vocabulary like パン、ベッド、チーズ etc.
The reason people have a hard time reading katakana is not because they focused on hiragana first, but because they didn't focus on katakana enough. It comes with practice.
