Hiragana

[Sammy Montalto]

Konnichiwa! I have decided to try and take on Japanese as a third language, I'm also taking French. I have a few questions!

One, is Hiragana OK on it's own, or do I need to know the other branches?

Two, are the other branches or forms used in different parts or no, if so why are they there?

Three, any beginner tips? I have no background working in any similar language like mandarian chinese, etc. Although, I am writing notes from a website, any website reccomendations?

If you can help me out it would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[charusu]

By "other branches" do you mean katakana and kanji? If so, you will ultimately need all three to communicate. Check out Japanese writing system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for more information about the uses and histories of each.

Then you can use Hiragana and Katakana Practice 窶あ Real Kana to memorize hiragana and katakana (collectively referred to as "kana"), then check out flash card programs like Anki to start with the kanji.



In response to your poll, there is no reason why you can't teach yourself the writing systems - start with the kana, there are 96, which will be a drop in the bucket compared to the 2,000 or so kanji that you'll need to be proficient - it is a very long process - don't get overwhelmed, just take chunks at a time and expose yourself as often as you can (like by going to international food stores and reading packaging to see how the kana are written in the real world). Finally, don't give up - just jump in, you'll learn to swim.

 

[Coffeesan]

Definately learn Hiragana first. Its easier to learn than Katakana and is far more commonly used and more useful for beginners and experts alike. You'll rarely use Katakana whilst study to be honest except for a few loan words, if you live or work in a Japanese enviroment it would be very important but otherwise not so much. Master Hiragana first its very easy and doesnt take long, learn 5 at a time rather than 10 dont try and rush it.

ば ぶ ご ぎ

ぽ ぱ ぷ

The above are examples of Dakuon and Handakuon respectively. The 2 strokes and the small circle. You'll need to read up about them and learn what they are for. I'm giving you the names here because its hard trying to look them up when you dont even know if they have a name and you cant write them into google as they arent stand alone symbols.

Also

きょ じょ にょ しょ

Are examples of Yoon characters basically very easy to remember. The trick is to remember the consonant on the front is always the 2nd character in their corresponding hiragana line e.g. Ji, Ni, Shi, Ki etc.

 

[Boris M]

It's fairly easy. I used the "Remembering the kana -hiragana" book but it is nothing great, little bit of history, few thing explained and than the stories about every single hiragana sign, it helped me with few, but some are really rubish.

 

[Sammy Montalto]

Yes I did, and sorry I didn't quite understand the concept of them last night, but I did some research, and thank you very much!

 

[nekojita]

For both hiragana and katakana you can practice by writing simple words as well as just the individual characters.
(e.g. if you've learnt the first five hiragana, あ、い、う、え、お then you can learn common words like あおい、いい、いえ、あう、あい etc).

It helps, I think, to put them to some more practical use rather than just writing the individual ones out again and again. Fluency/speed in reading and writing comes with time and practice so don't worry if you feel you're slow at first. It can help to associate kana with particular words if you mix them up, e.g. I used to mix up ヨ (katakana "yo") and ユ (katakana "yu") until I learnt ヨ is for ヨーガ (yoga).

I disagree that you will rarely use katakana during study; you can start with just hiragana but there's no point in delaying learning katakana. Particularly if you are a native English speaker, it is often possible to decipher many words you haven't learnt before, just by knowing katakana (with some practice/understanding of how things are transliterated).
e.g. common on many websites: ログイン , ヘルプ , アカウント

Most textbooks/learning resources will either introduce both types of kana early on, or assume you already know them.
Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese is a good introduction to Japanese grammar, probably the best you'll get that's free, online, and in English.

 

[Sammy Montalto]

Ahh thanks, well I'm trying to learn the Hiragana characters currently, I made flashcards and am going 13 at a time, it's day two and I am up to 26 characters, I made a notebook, and whenever I can, start practicing! And I'm going to try and watch some online japanese shows like Anime and manga, just to feel a little more in tune with it. The hardest thing I have found for me is the prununciation, but I found a website for the characters pronunciations, and I soon found out that the first five characters or so are the foundations of the pronunciation.
A=Ah, I=ee, U=ooh, E=eh and O=oh! I'm becoming faster with the flashcards, saying them verbally and writing them down for practice helps very much! and keep it up with the tips it's very helpful!!

 

[nice gaijin]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: when I first got to Japan, I was blown away by how underprepared I was for how much katakana there is everywhere.

My friends and I began practicing by writing out sentences in english and spanish using only katakana, to get us so used to the characters that we could interpret their sounds without a second thought. Of course, the combination of sounds you'll find in English and Spanish vocabulary are different, so it's still better to try to practice your Japanese vocab and sentences in this manner. Later down the line, reading lines entirely in kana will help you better appreciate kanji.

 

[Coffeesan]

Unfortunately people are still missing the overall point I was making which was Hiragana is far more widely used and is fundamentally more important. The entire language can be written in Hiragana, suffixes for verb stems are written in Hiragana, basic sentences are written in Hiragana. If you learn Katakana first you are limiting yourself because you cant even construct sentences. Yes Katakana is used widely IN JAPAN but outside of Japan when you're a newbie trying to understand the basic constructs of the language and how to conjugate, pronounce, form sentence clauses, use particles etc Katakana is going to be of almost zero use. There is a reason why people learn in second, its nothing to do with disrespecting their precious language its simply the case of its important at a later stage in the same as Kanji is more important at a later stage. You wouldnt learn 1900 Kanji then learn Hiragana and sentence structure would you?

 

[nekojita]

@nice gaijin: We used to write notes to each other in katakana English when we had substitute teachers.

For pronunciation, audio is important. Basically, recordings of native speakers (something like the audio files attached to the dictionary entries in WWWJDIC would be a possiblity, or something like WEB版「エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。」サイト閉鎖と新サイトのご案内 | WEB版 エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。 ), where you know what they're saying, so you can follow along. Pay attention to vowel length - the difference between お and おう sounds, for example.


ETA: Regarding katakana, yes, it should probably be learnt second, I never said it should be learnt first (although in the long term I don't think it matters). However, it should be learnt directly after hiragana, while learning some basic vocab/sentences structures - it is not hard to learn some basic grammar alongside learning katakana. You don't have to learn one thing at a time.

Any basic textbook will introduce it early on since it will be probably used for things like: your name, your nationality, the town where you live (as part of self-introductions), and a great many common words.

It should definitely be learnt before you start on kanji.

Saying "learn hiragana, then katakana" I think generally anyone would agree with. To say something like "you'll rarely use Katakana" I think does a learner no help and is what I take issue with. You will certainly use katakana; even if you are outside Japan if you look at any Japanese website, at any reading materials, play any Japanese games, use pretty much any textbook, or any online materials that don't use romaji.

 

[Sammy Montalto]

I see your overall point on learning Katakana before Hiragana, but I'm only 14, and I'm juggling a French I class, so I'm trying to make this an easier task, mostly because I only have about half an hour to and hour to do lessons everyday. But Thank you for expressing the values of katakana, I know it's very important, but I probably won't have the chance to go to japan anytime soon, but I'm trying to watch Japanese anime. Hahaa, it gets me used to the pronunciation, and how things sound, so I'm watching old episodes of Bleach on hulu. It's amusing and it helps me!!

---------- Post added at 09:03 ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 ----------

Btw just a quick question, how many characters are in Hiragana, and Kanji, and Katakanna, separately

 

[nekojita]

hiragana and katakana have the same number. Charusu quoted "96" for both up there. It depends whether you count "extended" katakana, which are some combinations/extensions (like ヴ) which are used for some foreign words, but those can be left until you start learning those words.

There are a large number of kanji - many are not commonly used in modern day texts, though.
The question of "how many do I need" is a complex one since it depends a lot on the text.

To give you some ideas:
In the first year of school Japanese children (after learning their hiragana and katakana) learn 80.
In the first six years they learn the whole of a list called the kyōiku kanji, 1006 in total.
Then there is a list of jōyō kanji (now 2,136), which will be learnt in school, however not all of these are that common so you won't necessarily need to learn every single one on that list.
Some kanji are not on the jōyō list but are still common (in certain contexts).

You can feel free to worry about katakana after you've gotten through your hiragana. If you can get a textbook at some point, it will probably use both hiragana and katakana, and then introduce some of the most common kanji. Most resources for beginners will put "furigana" (little hiragana above the kanji) to show the readings of kanji words.

Keep going with your hiragana, it sounds like you're making good progress!

 

[Sammy Montalto]

@nekojita Thanks! I'm testing myself on those I studied, and I'm up to 30 now, if I get any of them wrong I rewrite them five or so times. Then I test my self on those separate words, and once done, I do a total recap again, I'm just trying to nail them into my head before I start words! And do you have any tips on doing self tests? Because I don't know if I will be able to get a textbook anytime soon!!

 

[eeky]

Learning hiragana and katakana (by which I mean recognising the characters and the sounds they correspond to) is a process of a few weeks that comes at the beginning of the years and years that it takes to learn Japanese. It needs to be got out of the way as soon as possible and with the minimum of fuss. Flashcards or electronic equivalent are useful, but otherwise no special aids or techniques are required. Just bash away at them for a few weeks using rote learning and you should be fine. Then you can start on the more interesting stuff.

 

[eeky]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: when I first got to Japan, I was blown away by how underprepared I was for how much katakana there is everywhere.

Sometimes when I look at Japanese adverts it seems that they are practically written entirely in katakana-ised English. OK, slight exaggeration maybe, but the number of English words used, even when there are perfectly good Japanese ones available, amazes me. It seems like non-English-speaking Japanese learners almost have to learn two languages...

 

[Mike Cash]

Eeky, that's how I learned katakana: by osmosis from advertisements; I never studied them.

 

[Sammy Montalto]

I figure it might be easier to just do a load of studying each one, and constantly testing every day. I started off writing them repeatedly and taking small tests. After I got to thirty I believe yesterday, I had 23 out of 30 correct, then took those seven and wrote them each seven times, and tested myself on those, until I got a 100%. But today i was only at 4 incorrect, so I'm slowly progressing. Hiragana is an easy enough task so far.