Hi Emma,
Is there also a lesson on the Japanese alphabet? I am having a hard time memorizing the words because we are not breaking them down to letters. Is there a lesson on the Japanese alphabet with corresponding letter sounds that I can learn as a start?
Regards,
Roy
Hi Roy,
For the script itself, I would recommend a collection like this one:
Or alternatively, some of the games on this website may prove useful:
http://www.learn-hiragana-katakana.com
Hope this helps!
Such decks are always available in online libraries of apps like Anki or AnyMemo. I’ve used the later one to review the Hebrew alphabet.
Hi Guys, thanks for your inputs
Do you think it’s a good idea for me to try learning the alphabet first or should I just work harder on memorizing the words?
What was your experience in learning a new language with a totally different alphabet?
Regards,
Roy
My advice would be to get used to the script first. For me, I found learning the words a lot easier if I could “sound them out”. I also found that getting used to how the characters sounded helped avoid issues you can run into when putting it into the Latin alphabet (e.g. ら、り、る、れ、ろ usually transliterate to “ra, ri, ru, re, ro” but the sound is a bit different).
I haven’t worried as much about the kanji, but the hiragana and katakana I got used to before diving into learning at all.
Hi roymac,
I think the suggestions from Lyise and eugrus are both good. When I first started studying Japanese I learned hiragana and katakana using flashcards. That said, I wouldn’t spend too much time learning hiragana and katakana. I maybe spent a few weeks on them before moving on to words. That isn’t to say I knew hiragana and katakana very well after those few weeks. I found that it became much easier to remember them after I started reviewing entire words. Also, in the case of words that use Kanji, I would use hiragana to show how the word is pronounced. This means that when using LingQ I would put hiragana in the “hint” as well as the definition.
頑張ってください！ (do your best / good luck)
Hiragana version
Romaji
I think just mastering hiraganas or katakanas without contexts seems boring. Glancing at a Japanese alphabet table if necessary is good, but it is hard to spend much time learning the table.
As for me, I read new texts even if I don’t master all the words in the texts I have already read. The more I encounter the same words in different contexts, the more I learn how to use them.
So, learning what to talk with someone in Japanese (using hiragana) is a good choice.
If you already know the sounds; I started with a tiny program called Learnkana. You can still find it here, LearnKana hopefully. (The website of the guy that created it is no longer there.)
It’s simple. You just type what you see and hit return. If you’re right you see the next one. If you’re wrong it stays there and you try again. You can get up to quite a speed with it in a short time, slowly adding more letters. I did that until I got like 200 correct in a row, then added another letter. Within a couple of hours, treating it like a game and trying to beat my longest run, I had them all memorised and could read (albeit slowly and like a kid) anything in Hiragana or Katakana.