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Help: trying to learn Hiragana

Martialartsnovice

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Hi I need help trying to remember Hiragana, But I keep forgetting about half the letters, in Hirgana, i feel quite dumb, but thats my opinion, My friend said it took him a while but he was in class at my school, learining it every day, Me well I study about every 2 days. I wanted to get a mastery on teh Hiragan system, before I attempt the class next year, I really am aggravated about my loss of memory, and lack of memory recall. Is there any tricks to remebering the systems or am I lost in the woods here folks.
 
I have been learning Japanese for a couple of months but there's a couple of Hiragana that I always seem to confuse or forget, because they aren't used as frequently (at least, in words I've encountered so far). What learning methods are you using? Flash cards, recognition? Reading?

You probably need to try a combination of things like -

- concentrate on a group of Hiragana and write each one out 10 times
- flash cards
- listen to Japanese and try to picture the Hiragana in your head

I've taken classes on learning methods.... you remember things more easily if you combine audio (listening), visual (flash cards), and kinaesthetic methods (in this case, writing). Certainly, when I was learning Italian, writing out the vocab and verb patterns over and over helped them to stick in my mind!
 
I recommend the game at this website:

Project LRNJ: Learn Japanese RPG

It's an rpg type game where you type in the romaji (english equivalent) of the hiragana and katakana to defeat creatures.

It includes the 4 excised syllables, but 4 extras isn't a terrible strain.
 
My advice is to just use it: write it, read it. I don't know if you have a textbook or not but if you do, it most probably has chapters written in hiragana in it. Just so don't peek the rﾃｴmaji if there is any Another thing is of course memory tricks. My Japanese teacher said that she remembers "hi" because it looks like a smiling face. I remember "yu" because it looks like a fish (well to me it does ^^; ) and yu is fish in Chinese. Learning hiragana isn't hard once you get a hang of it, gambatte kudasai ^^

The thing with trying to learn a new language is that you have to dedicate a lot of time to it...
 
miu said:
My Japanese teacher said that she remembers "hi" because it looks like a smiling face. I remember "yu" because it looks like a fish (well to me it does ^^; ) and yu is fish in Chinese.
Click to expand...

"ゆ"

wow, despite the fact that my real name includes "ゆ", I've never noticed it.

But as for "ひ", I cant see why it looks like a smiling face. :?
 
Well, not the whole face. Just the smile. (and it's crooked)
 
when i was learning hiragana there was a phrase to help you remember each one. for example, yu is for u-turn, because it looks like the shape a car leaves behind when doing a u-turn. a is for antenna, because it looks like a television antenna sitting on someone's roof.
 
Yeah, I just studied them a lot. It took me like 2 weeks to remember all of them. Not just the 46 that is. MAKE FLASH CARDS. That really helps. It's just like sports and stuff, do it almost every day and you will get used to it. Kind of like second nature. Keep it up!!
 

の looks like the "NO XXX" symbol, so that one's pretty easy (btw, it's no, just in case you were wondering). You know, like the "NO SMOKING" sign that has the red circle and the line going through the cigarettes?

た looks almost like a "t" and an "a," so remembering that it's ta should pose no problem.

If I remember more, I'll post them.
 
I have some study aids at home that could help you guys out. I'll have to scan them, but I would be glad to email them to you if you want them! They worked really well for me when I took my first class
 
I have scanned worksheets for both hiragana and katakana if anyone would like them, I will be more than glad to email them to you!
 
CC1 said:
I have some study aids at home that could help you guys out. I'll have to scan them, but I would be glad to email them to you if you want them! They worked really well for me when I took my first class
Click to expand...




i just recieved the study sheets off CC1, they are really helpful...! nice 1


each of the characters is given a funny description to help you remember them based on what they look like, with these worksheets and the slime forest game, im sure ill be reading japanese (except kanji ) in no time

once again thanx for all the useful info in this thread

yorkii
 
I used picture cards and a book called 'Kana Pict-o-graphix' by Michael Rowley. The book uses mnemonics for each Kana sign. Took me longer to laern the Katakan than the Hiragana. I now practice when I can and sign my first name in katakana along with my own signature. Non-important documents anyway
 
I used Kana Sensei: Kana Sensei

It runs on dos so if you have xp or uhh, not windows at all, you might need a dos emulator to run it(which I have cuz I love some old dos games(and kana sensei))
 
I'm not really bragging here because there are a lot of things in Japanese that I just can't get my head around, but learning hiragana was probably the easiest thing I'd done. It literally took me around 3 hours to be able to recognise all of them (a feat which completely surprised me). My method was to imagine an image related to the hiragana. I used many examples from the website

Hiragana Lessons | TheJapanesePage.com

and just invented others when I thought they were better. E.g. ki looks like a key, ku looks like Pacman (PaKUman), shi looks like a girl's hair, mi looks sort of like a "J", which is the first letter of my name, so hence, "me", ta looks like it should be ta, etc etc.

Now if only it was as easy remember vocab and kanji!
 
I've been taking lessons for a few months now... once a week. At the beginning, I just remembered all the sounds and recite them, but then we had this little pop quiz and I realized that I didn't know most of the letters. Hahaha... So I started bringing my Japanese class' binder to school and if I finish a test or quiz early, I'd take out the binder and review. What I did was look over the chart that I had and then covered it. Then I took out a sheet of paper and wrote all the hiragana sounds (A, I, U, E, O, KA, KI etc.) down in a row. Then I'd go down the list and write all the hiragana I knew beside it and when I was finished, I'd take my chart back out and circle all the blanks I left and also the incorrect words. I'd rewrite them and study them and do the "test" again. It took me about a week or two to memorize all of them. I hated "wa" and "re" because I always got confused. And I used to put two "dots" for "ka" so it looked like the katagana "ga"... @_@... yeah... Japanese is pretty easy compared to Chinese in my opinion... =) Good luck!
 
Remembering

The way I learnt Hiragana was with remebering what the hiragana characters look like, here they are:
A= antenna, I= hawaii (the I's in the word), U= Oo my back ( an old lady being hit by a rock), E= Extra bit ( the letter H with extra bits), O= On the green (It looks like the hole in golf with the flag), Ka= Cuts (someone being whipped), Ki= Key, Ku= Kookaburras beak, Ke= A keg of beer, Ko= coin, Sa= Samurai sword, Shi= She has long hair, Su= Super loop, Se= Setting sun, So= Sewing (The cross stitch pattern), Ta= ta (the letters t and a), Chi= Cheezle puffs (being stabbed with a toothpick), Tsu= Tsunami, Te= Broken tennis raquet, To= Thorn in toe, Na= Nun praying (at a cross), Ni= Knee cap, Nu= Noodles, Ne= Hole in the net, No= No smoking, Ha= Haha there is a hole in your keg, Hi= Hi Hi smiley face, Fu= Mount Fugi, He= Pointing towards heaven, Ho= Hope I dont get sunburt with my hat on (man with a hat on) , Ma= Phone line to mum, Mi= Who's 21? Me! (looks like number 21), Me= Messy noodles, Mo= More bait more fish (looks like fishing hook), Ya= Yak, Yu= Can you catch me a fish? (looks like a fish), Yo= Yo-yo, Ra= Rabbit, Ri= Really long (one strokes longer than the other), Ru= Ruby, Re= Read (someone's sitting down reading), Ro= Robber stole the ruby, N= Looks like the letter n hope this helps anyone!!!
 
Are you serious? Why would you reply to thread that as been dead for almost 7 years?
 
Maddai, they are all great ways to remember Hiragana. Katakana is harder to adapt that method to though... ompous:
 
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