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Hi All,
I’ve always wanted to learn Japanese as i believe their language and culture is absolutely fascinating. A couple of weeks i decided i would really love to commit and learn as i’ve been planning and saving to travel there in a year or two (hoping to return many times after ^_^). I searched around for a while, trying to find great sources to learn the language and stumbled upon textfugu. All the reviews and opinions i read indicated that it was a fantastic source for learning Japanese. So i purchased the lifetime subscription and here i am.
As of right, i’m currently in Season 1/reading-writing-memorizing-hiragana/4-6. My question is:
How well should i learn all the different Kana. Do i have to learn every single Kana, including combos and Dakuten off by heart? Or just a fairly good understanding, knowing a lot of the main ones?
The reason i ask is because i would really love to continue reading, however if knowing all the kana (combo and Dakuten) would benefit me more – then i’ll have no problem sticking around. Not to toot my own horn, however i have a fairly good memory so this shouldn’t be the most difficult task, just a little time consuming (hopefully :P).
At the current rate i’m learning about 5 new Kana per day, including recognition and (near)correct writing. Using Anki and the RealKana website and iphone app – writing on the commute to / from work (1 hour each way!) and also at home (the to-do list is very helpful :-) I’m currently on the h column.
I guess that’s it, hopefully i’ve put this in the right section. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Nathan.Learn all of them. It’s one of the easiest parts of learning and should be one of the first things you do to avoid the romaji crutch. As soon as you start to get them down you can practice speaking, grammar, etc. much more naturally. If you naturally systematize things then it should take no time at all, as modified characters (w/dakuten) are easy to understand and the strokes are simple.
Yeah, definitely learn them all. The combos are easy once you know all your main kana, as you learn very quickly how to blend the two sounds.
I struggled a bit with dakuten, but they finally stuck in my memory after I devised a stupid mind trick to remember them by. It’d sound utterly weird to anyone else but my mind works in mysterious ways.
Didn’t need to do it with handakuten though, remembered that pretty easily because it was only one set.
If you put the time in early on to learn all the hiragana well, you’ll appreciate it so much later on.
Thanks guys, i appreciate the advice. Looks like i’ll learn all the kana like the back of my hand before moving on :)
That isn’t always necessary, especially if you are not good at remembering these symbols by heart quickly aka cramming and it will only slow down your learning, stress or/and bore you perhaps.
You should go through all the kana in a couple of days or so depending on your rate of learning, make sure you at least recognize(not necessarily know) most of the characters when you’re done, print them out, write them down on your hands etc for easier recognition/recall.
The more you use them, the more you recall/recognize the more it helps to consolidate them in your long-term memory. On second thought, don’t cram kana!
Cheers and good luck =)
When I found TF, I was already using Obenkyo(android app) to study Hiragana. My reading ability is no where near perfect, OP. I’m bashing through Season 2 like no one’s business right now. I’m finding it easier and easier to read things like desu, ichigo, and jarimasen just through practice and understanding the “conjugations” and ten-ten marks. I can’t fluently read it, but I can piece it together in a second or two to make the sounds. On top of Anki and what TF has you doing, I absolutely recommend Obenkyo for android if you have one, it’s free and pretty nice. Soon enough you’ll get to the point of where jarimasen and desu are second nature to read, just because of the overall shape the characters make (similar to how we recognize words almost like they are symbols).
So in short, don’t beat yourself up with hiragana, even Koichi says just get comfy, don’t drill yourself too hard. You’ll get bored and burnt out. No one wants that. Using other learning aids also helps to keep the experience fresh!
I only took one day to learn all of hiragana. You only need to learn the 46 characters roughly as memorize the dakuten for each row that has one. Combos a purely conceptual you should have to memorize it. Use anki decks and your lessons to get better at reading, at least thats what I did. But then again I also finished season 1 and 2 in a week :D. Have fun!
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