KANA/KANJI Lesson One - Meet Hiragana.

[Starry Starry Fright]

Hello my students and welcome to your first kana/kanji lesson.

There are three alphabets used to write Japanese, but for now we will start with the most useful and basic of them - Hiragana.

Hiragana can be used to write any Japanese word, and any written sentence is sure to contain some Hiragana. So let's start learning it.

Every character responds to a syllable, and one syllable only. There are no silent letters in Japanese. The vowel sounds are different than English sounds though - when you see "a i u e o" pronounce it " ahh eee oooo eh oh".

TO help you on your hiragana learning journey, I will now bombard you with internet resources. Yay!

This is a chart of all the hiragana. If you click the characters, it will say them for you:

http://www.tokyowithkids.com/fyi/hiragana_chart.html

This is a youtube video of hiragana being read to a dance beat. You can find related helpful videos in the sidebar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWR1Ziynt8g

And finally, lots of games to play to help you memorize:

http://genkienglish.net/genkijapan/hiragana1.htm

http://www.fupa.com/play/Puzzles-free-games/htlj-hiragana.html

http://www.tamarillo.net.au/hiragana/learn_hiragana_game.html

http://www.learn-hiragana-katakana.com/review-play-hiragana-game/

This concludes your first lesson! Hiragana is so important to writing Japanese, I can't say it enough! Learning is a slow process, so our next few lessons will be about reviewing and checking our progress.

Questions? Concerns? Post them as a reply to this lesson. If you understood everything, write a reply that says something like " I understand and I will memorize this as soon as I can!" so I can keep track of who is actually reading each lesson!  

[this little secret]

Very helpful~ Oh and I enjoyed the second link the most.  

[Starry Starry Fright]

I wish there was some way to get that dance beat onto an iPod... rofl  

[this little secret]

Yep. On to the next lesson~  

[x Falsi]

わかりました。 heart  

[Nintendo Princess]

Is stroke order important yet or is that for later? I can't seem to find a stroke order chart or anything similar that I can print out from the internet. D:<  

[Rihanna Bae]

I understand and I will memorize this as soon as I can!

I'll try my best heart

 

[Starry Starry Fright]

Nintendo Princess

Is stroke order important yet or is that for later? I can't seem to find a stroke order chart or anything similar that I can print out from the internet. D:<

Stroke order "technically" matters... but you typically start at the top and go left to right and work down.

Check out this page for more details.

http://japanese.about.com/library/blqow23.htm  

[Ai Amaterasu]

I'm trying words that I'm used to saying first before I try writing any sentences in Hirgana, but I have a question. For 'Kawaii' would I have two characters for the two i's or no?  

[Starry Starry Fright]

XVI Shiranui

I'm trying words that I'm used to saying first before I try writing any sentences in Hirgana, but I have a question. For 'Kawaii' would I have two characters for the two i's or no?

Yes, you definitely would.  

[Ai Amaterasu]

Starry Starry Fright

XVI Shiranui

I'm trying words that I'm used to saying first before I try writing any sentences in Hirgana, but I have a question. For 'Kawaii' would I have two characters for the two i's or no?

Yes, you definitely would.

Ok, thank you biggrin  

[ORANGIE JUUSH]

I understand. Ho ho ho. :D

 

[Kai Shi]

http://www.kanji-sudoku.com/kanji_writing_sheets/hiraganawritingsheet.pdf

Here's a sheet you can print off to practice your hiragana~  

[Nana Shinu Ai]

this posting site are good it very helpful but i think i need more practice on it. it very complex looking. i have to practice more. i got the lesson down just i need to practice more in Hiragana.