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And this is exactly the kind of trap that leads them through a path of boredom and lack of motivation that lasts for years, until the fatidic day when they finally give up. That’s because, as we discussed a few topics ago, the majority of those who try to learn Japanese end up giving up. If you visit Japanese learning communities such as r/learnjapanese, you’ll find that there are a particular set of books that virtually everyone uses to learn Japanese, such as Genki or Minna no Nihongo.īut you’ll also notice that these kinds of communities are always filled to the brim with beginner students.
#LEARNING FLUENT JAPANESE FOR BEGINNERS HOW TO#
Now that you’ve learned both syllabaries, you’re all set to start learning how to build your very first sentences, and most importantly, make sense of your very first sentences. You can also learn and practice Katakana by playing games such as Learn Japanese to Survive! Katakana War, Slime Forest Adventure and Knuckles in China Land. Īnd you can practice it with Kana.pro and Realkana. You can learn Hiragana with Memrise or JapanesePod101. Just like you did with Hiragana, you’ll need to learn 46 characters. Katakana, much like Hiragana, is a set of syllabaries used to write Japanese words phonetically.īut in contrast to Hiragana, Katakana is used to write loan words, foreign words (including foreign names such as John or Alice), onomatopoeias, technical or scientific terms and the names of plants and animals. Something that later evolved into what we know today as Katakana. They started to write simplified versions of those characters on bark with bamboo sticks. Needless to say, they arrived at the same conclusion as the women. Remember how back in the old days of Japanese, people used to write everything using Chinese characters, and how troublesome that was?Īs it turns out, women weren’t the only one who found it a pain to write everything using Chinese characters.īuddhist monks needed not only to write but to read extensive passages all written in Chinese characters. Much like Hiragana, the history behind Katakana tells us a lot about Japanese society. Now that you can read Hiragana, your next step will be to learn its counterpart, Katakana. Ĭongratulations on completing the first step. You can also learn and practice Hiragana by playing games such as Learn Japanese to Survive! Hiragana Battle, Slime forest Adventure and Knuckles in China Land. You can practice with Kana.pro, Realkana and Hiragana Quiz. You can learn Hiragana with Memrise, JapanesePod101 or Japanese Ammo. For now, all you need to do is learn 46 characters. Hiragana is used to write word inflections, particles, as well as some native Japanese words for which there are no Chinese characters or whose Chinese character form isn’t widely used.īut don’t worry about any of that. The tale of Genji and other early novels written by female authors used hiragana extensively. Spaces in Japanese: Here’s What You Need to Know WaniKani Review: An Amazing Kanji Learning Tool! 英語 (えいご): Meaning, Usage & Examples The 5 Best Ways to Say “Don’t give up” in JapaneseĪnd since women didn’t have access to the same levels of education as men, they started to write using an adapted form of the script, which was easier to write. A language whose history is ingrained not only in its words but even in the writing system itself.Ī language that even to this day is associated with great wisdom, great warriors of old, and great art and entertainment. They’re all used in tandem in Japanese writing, which gives the language it’s unique look, in contrast to other East Asiatic languages like Korean or Mandarin, that only use a single writing system.īut if you can see past all those hurdles, you’ll find a beautiful language that goes back millennia. To put it in perspective, languages such as English, Portuguese, Danish, Persian, Greek and Russian are all members of one large language family, the Indo-European language family.īut by far the biggest obstacle that Japanese learners have to face are the three different writing systems, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. That information on its own already frightens a lot of potential learners.Īnother point that’s worth mentioning is that Japanese is from the Japonic language family, that means there are no other languages related to it outside of Japan. These are said to be “exceptionally difficult for English speakers”. Why is that? Well, according to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the Department of State, Japanese is categorized as a category 4 language, together with Arabic, Korean, Cantonese and Mandarin.
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Needless to say, it’s certainly not a common sight. Now try to remember the last time you saw a non-Japanese person speaking fluent Japanese.