How To Get Better At Hiragana
“If I miss a day of practice, I know it. If I miss two days, my manager knows it. If I miss three days, my audience knows it.” – Andre Previn
If you’ve made it this far, then big kudos to you. Learning hiragana as much as you have is really tough, and almost everyone quits before this point. You’re doing well.
As I’ve said many times, you’re not expected to feel totally comfortable with hiragana yet. If you have to look things up sometimes, or if you have to struggle to remember a few of the kana, that’s okay. The rest of Season 1 should help you solidify your hiragana and help you to become a hiragana master (because Season 3 is when you start katakana… dun dun dunnn).
Throughout the rest of Season 1, there will be worksheets scattered around various lessons to help you with hiragana. Almost all the lessons will be in hiragana (so you’ll have to practice) and you will be given every opportunity you need to get better. Just think about how hard it was to learn your own native (presumably English?) alphabet. It probably took years to feel comfortable reading at a decent speed with English. Just keep thinking about that, because hiragana will definitely not take you that long. Despite what they say, kids don’t actually learn languages better. The trick is learning something the right way so that things are much easier to remember and learn, and that’s just what you’re doing.
So, before you move on, all I’m asking is that you feel decent about your hiragana. Not good, not great… just decent. I expect you to need to practice it more, and that’s just what we’ll do.
So, here’s to you getting good at reading and writing, it’ll happen faster than you think!