I am learning Japanese for a future return trip to Japan. While I seem to be doing okay with the speaking part of the language, I am having a difficult time learning the alphabet.
Has anyone here been successful in learning to read Japanese and can give me some tips. I'm learning Japanese from a PBS series and even got Hiragana flash cards. But my memory is not working with the symbols.
Good luck. Between Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, makes my head swim. I ask my cousin-in-law and she just rolls her eyes and says, "It's complicated."
The hiragana and katakana aren’t too bad. Try them in small groups of the 5 symbols they break down into easily (a, i, u, e, o; ka, ki, ku, ke, ko; etc.) I don’t know if there are any tricks other than just repetition, although it might depend on how you learn best. My teacher (ages ago) made me write the symbols a lot. A combination of that, the flash cards, and reading the symbol names out loud would work for me. Then application in word combinations. And forget kanji...... eek.
I think different people do best with different learning techniques, but I found that repeated writing of letters or short words was the best way for me to become comfortable with the Russian and (modern) Greek alphabets. I just copied out the beginning exercises from my text books. I have no experience with Japanese (which may well be harder), but I remember being relieved that I was OK with the Russian alphabet after two weeks of college Russian. At that point, the different alphabet was no longer an issue.
Practise and more practise. I studied Japanese when I was younger and I agree that it is not easy. When you say alphabet, do you mean Hiragana and Katakana? I think the key is to use them, once I started using them they became a lot easier to remember. That is probably also the reason I think Hiragana is the easier one to remember since I used it a lot more than Katakana.
I have no experience with Japanese (which may well be harder), but I
remember being relieved that I was OK with the Russian alphabet after
two weeks of college Russian.
Japanese is quite a bit harder. The 33 letters of the Russian alphabet are pretty easy compared to the 2000+ charachters of the Japanese writing system.
While I haven't studied Japanese, I can say that when I was first learning the Arabic alphabet, I had a lot of trouble because paper flashcards just didn't seem to be doing it for me (plus the letters look different depending on where they are in the word). I ended up using the Drops app which got me over the hump and made it all a lot easier. Lots of spaced repetition, and it kept track of what I knew well and what I struggled with. That's why I'd generally recommend some kind of flashcard app because it spaces things out for you.
Searching around online, it looks like there are a variety of tools out there - I saw one called kana.pro, or you'd probably be able to find online flashcard sets on Anki, Quizlet, and others. It also looks like some lists include image cues to help memorize the shape - here's an example of a list on Quizlet that uses illustrations.
I took some Japanese classes in college and lived in Japan for awhile. What worked the best for me was to practice writing each character on paper, over and over and over. Each time you write the character, say/pronounce the character out loud (you can speak quietly or whisper if there is someone else in the room). If you say the character out loud as you see it and write it, I think this helps reinforce and store what you're learning in your brain. Learning/retaining languages seems to work best if each day, you read the language, write the language, hear the language, and speak the language.
You need to learn to write the characters. I learned Japanese in high school, plus I lived in a Japanese neighborhood. It helped to be bilingual when I worked for an international hotel chain in Japan and other Asian countries. The best way I learned to read the characters is to write them. By learning to write them, you recognize the different strokes of each letter. Then you can use the flash cards to help you remember.
I’m also self-teaching Japanese. I bought these books at Barnes & Noble
These books have a CD-ROM so you can print your own flash cards but I haven’t, mostly because my laptop don’t have a CD-ROM thingie. Right now I already learned Hiragana, and doing the Katakana part of the book. My biggest fear is Kanji, though 😓
Also I recommend you to get workbooks on Amazon, they’re cheap and allows you to repeat the same character many times.
There are a couple of channels on YouTube I can recommend you also, if you’re interested. Just let me know.
I took university Japanese. Don't try to bite off too much at once. You should systematically learn hiragana first. Go down the chart learning one row at a time. Don't move on until you've mastered that row. As others have suggested, you should buy a workbook on Amazon. And there are lots of YouTubes on learning hiragana. I used Japanesepod101.com.
How are you using the flash cards? To begin, I would take only the cards of the first row, ka, ki etc. Practice writing them and say the sound out loud at the same time. Once you feel comfortable, test yourself. Mix the cards around, have only one side up and see if you can answer the other side. Then flip them around. Don't move onto the next row, until your test is 100%. But you must also review. As you proceed, include the flash cards of the previous rows in your self-assessment test.
Do not move onto katakana until you have learned hiragana. As you are a beginner, don't even try kanji. Kanji was not introduced in my course until the second year. You will be able to get by in Japan with hiragana and katakana.
Japanese is not an easy language for English speakers to learn. You need to put in the work and be very patient. It took one semester to learn hiragana and katakana.
It is very admirable of you to learn Japanese. You will have a richer experience. But equally important it to also learn the etiquette. I hope your PBS course includes that. If not, you can find information on YouTube or on Japanesepod101. Have fun studying.
I’m using Japanesepod101 in YouTube and has really helped with the mnemonics they use. It’s probably what had helped me the most: mnemonics.
I am actively studying Japanese right now. I started four years ago with the Japanesepod101 app. It was fairly good at helping you learn some useful phrases but as a predominantly audio app, I didn't learn to read, write, or really construct sentences because there was limited grammar taught. The app does allow you to download pdf transcripts and extras of their lessons but I was doing this mainly through the audio during my commute to/from work. After that I started taking classes with the local Japanese Society (https://www.usajapan.org/) which used the Genki books (http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/index_en). Keep in mind that it takes a lot of work/time to get to the level where you're having full conversations with locals and able to read a newspaper due to the fact that in addition to the two Kana alphabet you also need to know about 2000+/- Kanji. Also keep in mind all the varying degrees of formality which affects not just verb conjugation but verb choice. With that being said, I'll echo what another person hear said, mnemonics, mnemonics, mnemonics! I came up with so many goofy mnemonics to memorize kana and kanji and even conjugations and vocabulary. The stranger and goofier the mnemonic was the more the character/word got ingrained into my memory to the point where there's no way I'll ever forget it. I'll also recommend this book: https://keystojapanese.com/. They have fairly decent mnemonics for every kanji. Lastly, I'll suggest to read a lot. Whether it's a newspaper, advertisement, menu, product lable, even if you don't know all the kana/kanji needed, just read the ones you can. Seeing it in situ will help. Similar to finding a native speaker to talk/practice with.
Frank,
I'm American but was born in Japan during the occupation and lived there for my first few years. I actually learned to speak it as a child by listening to the maids speaking it to each other (no, we weren't rich, virtually all American families living there during the Occupation, except for soldiers in barracks, had maids, full time for $30/month) .
And so, I learned to speak Japanese pretty much like Japanese kids do, listening to adults conversing. But on a 2nd stationing in Japanese as a teen, I became aware that reading and writing Japanese is way more difficult than learning to speak it, even for Japanese children, let alone for English speakers. I've read that their equivalent to our 26 letters is about a thousand characters, and that's just what they have to learn in the early grades. One of the problems is that the characters, or at least many of them, are not phonetic. To be fluent in reading and writing Japanese takes Japanese children many years of hard study.
Hiragana and katakana aren’t that difficult. Kanji is too hard to learn just for a trip. What I found was that with some practice, you can get to where you can distinguish one character from another without them all looking like hen scratches. Do learn a few easy ones, such as ‘exit’.
Have you considered hiring a real-person tutor? Regardless of the language I was learning, I found it very helpful. I understand that you are doing well with speaking, but even in writing, tutors can be helpful with learning tips for all aspects of language. However, shop around. Cost and quality varies widely.
I have decided to stick to the spoken language and disregard the written language. I'm going to be using it for "tourist" trips to Japan and most "important" signs are also in English. (Train stations, airports, etc.)
Good decision, Frank.
I was hoping, Kent, to be able to read things like menus. I guess I'll just have to stick to the pictures and point. It worked on my previous visit.
The pictures are for the Japanese as well as foreigners
Learning a language is awesome, and in these hard times I am trying to learn Thai as I travel their often and wants to connect with locals. So I can't suggest you some good Japanese language sites but will share an awesome guy name - Ikenna. He is a polyglot and has his own you tube channel where he has shared some awesome resources. So you can check his channel and also checkout Mango Language app, as it might help you in reading/ writing Japanese.
Have you tried the duolingo app? They have some good study material on Japanese, where they teach you words. Though I am not sure will they be good for learning a Japanese language. So I would suggest you to connect with some local Japanese via Italki. Here you can first talk with some locals, and share your requirement, and then plan a class with them.
Came here to recommend Duolingo. On my last trip I could sound out menu items on the menu in the window (ter-ri-ah-kee burr-gah). Then I walked in and they gave me an English menu!
Duolingo starts you with a few characters and the sounds they're associated with, and then teaches you words that use those characters. There's lots of repetition to help it stick.
I had 16 graduate credit hours in Japanese. We didn’t start to learn the symbolic characters until the last semester.
