Japanese for beginners

Hiragana and katakana.

Before kanji come kana: two syllabaries of 46 characters each. Hiragana write Japanese words and grammar, katakana write foreign words.

How to learn them

01
One row at a time
あいうえお, then かきくけこ… Five kana a day gets you through all of them in ten days.
02
By writing them
Drawing each kana in the right order fixes its shape far better than staring at it.
03
By reading straight away
From the first row, read words: あい (love), いえ (house). Reading is what makes kana stick.

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