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My parents received an information packet from my study abroad program. They recommended I learn as much Japanese as possible before arriving in Tokyo. They also said I should try and memorize the hiragana and katakana alphabets before I arrive (I guess so they don't have to leave time for that in the 6 week class I'm taking).
I've tried in the past to learn hiragana and katakana. I have a hard time memorizing what the symbols stand for (since most don't look anything like what they are). I've tried practicing with flash card before but to no avail. Does anyone have any techniques that might be good at memorizing these alphabets? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
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I know hiragana and katakana... It takes quite a bit of practice. Perhaps japanese children's books might help. Perhaps learning simple words in katakana and hiragana would work Hiragana is easier for me, but katakana has a lot of words that come from English in it.
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I can remember a, i, and u pretty easily (a because it's on the cover of one of my learning Japanese books, i and u because they look similar to the letters). The rest are hard for me.
I have a Japanese children's book as well as some Japanese manga designed for kids around the age of 5 or so. I'll take a look at those and see if it helps me.
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Oo where did you get stuff like that? I need to master Japanese and soon. I took two years of it, but forgot so much.
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Try and think of an object that makes the sound of that character and also LOOKS like it in some way or another.
For example the character for the sound "nu" looks like two chopsticks picking up some NOODLES.
The beginner "Nakama" textbook has a bunch of such illustrations.
Do not give up on the flashcards, keep at 'em. It's a matter of time and repetition. Try and teach them to another person because you learn a lot trying to explain to them what's going on with this funky alphabet.
I would learn Hiragana first, followed by Katakana, and not both at the same time.
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I had a friend here at school who studied Japanese. He had tons of Japanese stuff. Last spring, he moved to Japan, and so he couldn't take all his stuff with him. He gave away a lot of it. I asked him for whatever stuff he could recommend for a beginner in Japanese. He gave me a small stack of stuff (including a Japanese Bible).
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Earendil's advice is good - that's the method that my Japanese professor used last year. She handed out these packets with illustrations that turned each character into an object that made that character's sound. It was really helpful, although some of the associations were a bit weird (for example, katakana "mu" was a <b>moo</b>se taking a bite out of a triangle. ). I've been taking Japanese for two years now, and that's still how I remember some of the characters.
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Earendil's advice is what I used too. Another thing I used to do is memorize one set of sounds at a time, and trace them in the air every time I had to drive somewhere. I have a really hard time with Katakana though, I never fully memorized it.
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I learned hiragana and katakana Earendil's way. We used our teacher's book (Adventures in Japanese by Hiromi Peterson) and each character came with an illustration. For example, "NU" (ぬ) was a new bicycle. And katakana no "NE" (ネ) was a nest. Then the same thing was done with kanji. It's a good book and I highly recommend it. It's better than any other Japanese textbook I've seen.
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I've been using Remembering the Kana. It's really fun and effective. And yeah, it uses mental images to help you remember the kana. It works!
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Are you going for this summer, or for a year? I ask because I took a six week program in Japan last summer.
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Also, just practice on flashcards every chance you get. That's the only way its going to become second nature for you. Its very possible to learn them in a week or less if you're looking at flashcards in all the little bits of time you have during the day.
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My wife is Japanese and taught Japanese at a Highschool. The book she used (and still uses for private tutoring) is A Guide to learning hiragana and katagana. It is a very handy book with good explanations. It teaches through words that build on each other, it teaches stroke order, and it is set up so you can photocopy pages and practice writing it.
I spent some time on it and learned both. It came very easy and was fun to do. I then got busy and stopped trying to learn Japanese--so I have forgotten.
I think if I would of continued with it and followed up this book with flash cards, it would have stuck. I did not use my wife to practice and I have never spent extended periods of time in Japan.
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I personally found it easiest to just use flash cards for small sections at a time, much like learning lines for a play. a, i, u, e, o; ka, ki, ku, ke, ko; et cetera, and then taking the small bits that I knew and shuffling them up and making sure I knew that little bit. Also, I found it easy to remember that the ticks take a voiceless consonant and make it voiced, so I didn't have to bother memorising what they were. My prof compared them to pictures of things, but for some reason that confused me more than anything. However works best for you, I do hope it works well.
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quote:Originally posted by ReikoDemosthenes: I personally found it easiest to just use flash cards for small sections at a time, much like learning lines for a play. a, i, u, e, o; ka, ki, ku, ke, ko; et cetera, and then taking the small bits that I knew and shuffling them up and making sure I knew that little bit.
A very good strategy.
If you have the standard "grid" of those characters you'll notice a pattern of "a, i, u, e, o" down each column. Try going from right to left, and getting down each column until you reach the other side.
Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I lucked out and got some katakana practice today. I've been following this Japanese game (Mother 3, Mother 2 was Earthbound for the SNES for anyone who doesn't know) for quite some time. Since they announced the release date of 4/20, they've been releasing a little information each week (every Monday night around 8PM).
Today's little bit of information had katakana in it. They were showing 3 of the characters in the game, and it gave their names in katakana. I sat staring at them, tempted to just jump to a forum to get a translation. Finally I recognized some of the characters. I wrote out a rough translation of what I thought the names were. I then went to the forum and checked. Sure enough, my translations were right on. I was quite happy about this. Maybe it makes me a nerd though. Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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Mother 2 rocked, and I'm glad they're FINALLY releasing a Mother 3. I'm going to look for the news/tidbits now. Where is the site?(scamper google scamper)
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The Mother 3 site where they are releasing pieces of information each week is off of Itoi's (the creator of the Mother series) main site. Here's the link. If you come to the forums on starmen.net, we're having a large discussion about the various bits and pieces. It's interesting stuff.
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Oh! I totally forgot! I have a game called Slime Forest I could send you, if you wish. It covers hiragana and katakana, although it adds in a few characters that I'm fairly sure I can safely say you will never see. It also does the meanings of a number of kanji. Drop me a note if you are interested; the contact info is in my profile.
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![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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). I've been taking Japanese for two years now, and that's still how I remember some of the characters.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
