Learning hiragana impossible?

[fimble]

I learned how to recognize all the Hiragana but it takes me seconds to recognize each one! If it takes me seconds to recognize one then I will never be able to read quickly. A 5000 character article would take me over 4 hours to read! Reading a newspaper might take me weeks! If I spend all my time reading newspapers I will never be able to do anything else and wont have any money and wont be able to buy food and will starve.

Please help.

 

[Mike Cash]

Presumably you still read English as slowly now as you did when you were a child just starting out, so it will probably take you a couple of minutes to read this sentence....and your mother will help with the big words.

You needn't worry about reading Japanese newspapers, since you'll never figure out anything in them from just the hiragana anyway. Complete waste of your time.

 

[charusu]

Check out realkana.com, it will help you drastically with speedy recognition. After some time you'll begin to "feel" them.

 

[Glenn]

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen anyone freak out over learning hiragana. I wonder if the OP is aware of what kanji are.

[Edit] Never mind. I just found this: Kanji font size | Japan Forum Hmm... that only makes this thread all the more bizarre.

 

[fimble]

I have been using that website.

When I first memorized them, I would sometimes see the hiragana character and instantly type out the romaji without even thinking about it.

However, after practicing for a while that stopped happening and instead I would consciously think during the recognition process. For example, I might think "Ok that can't be ki because ki has two lines and chi goes the other way so this is sa."

Based on the fact that when I first started learning them there were instances of recognizing them instantly and that is no longer happening I can only infer that I am getting steadily worse the more I practice.

 

[Glenn]

No, you're just looking at them more closely again to be sure. It's part of the learning process. Your recognition will get faster and faster the more you read them; you don't need to worry about that. There is something to be said for taking breaks, though. If you're starting to feel a bit burned out on it, step away for a while. It'll give your brain time to absorb and sort all the information, and it should feel easier when you come back to it.

 

[eeky]

How long have you been learning, and how much do you practise? If you've been learning for three years and still don't know hiragana properly then I'd say give up, but otherwise it may be just a normal part of the learning process. As new stuff piles up on top, the older stuff that you feel you ought to know can get displaced. I periodically go through stages where I feel I'm forgetting stuff I used to know, like misreading simple kanji that I learned a year ago. If it's any consolation, as you read more and more Japanese, it becomes easier to recognise whole multi-character combinations without having to step through consciously recognising each character individually. This is similar to English, where fluent readers pick off whole words at once without spelling them out letter by letter.

 

[fimble]

Uh I practiced for very short periods of time so the total time I have spent on learning them is probably less than 2 hours.

 

[eeky]

You expected to be able to read hiragana fluently after 2 hours' practice??!!

 

[Mike Cash]

Gentlemen, our collective chain has been most vigorously YANKED.

 

[fimble]

I may be slightly exaggerating my level of anxiety for emphasis but I am definitely serious.

 

[Mike Cash]

So are we; your worries are unwarranted and premature.

 

[Davey]

it took me weeks to learn Hiragana, and I am still making mistakes with Katagana... so don't worry about not knowing hiragana within a week.

try quizlet.com and search for hiragana.

 

[JimmySeal]

I've got a similar question, but I've been trying to learn how to play the violin now for at least 5 hours, but still, all I can do is produce a bunch of screeching sounds. Is it hopeless? Will I always be this bad?

 

[Davey]

I've got a similar question, but I've been trying to learn how to play the violin now for at least 5 hours, but still, all I can do is produce a bunch of screeching sounds. Is it hopeless? Will I always be this bad?

I can give you some private lessons if you want to.

Anyway, I hope the OP comes back to let us know he will keep trying and to be more realistic.

I honestly have to say that when I just started learning Japanese I also thought that I would be able to read hiragana in no time... it are only 48 characters.

 

[Glenn]

It probably took me about two weeks to learn them all, but part of that was because I was in a class and that was the pace we were going. Still if you do them all in one day and spend lots of times writing things with them you can probably get them down in just a few days, but I'm not sure how fluently you'd be able to read them at that point.