Hiragana

I've been trying to read and write Hiragana characters (a basic form of Japanese) for almost 2 hours! I'm not halfway done and my head hurts.....
It's tedious and fascinating at the same time. But i'll write a character over 15X and yet my mind just blanks when I try to think of what i just wrote lol

[FinalFantasyFan]

日本語を勉強しますか？
I have no idea whether or not that means what I think it means, but I would love to learn Japanese. I know hiragana and katakana, and I know the meanings of many kanji from my study of Chinese. The grammar is obviously quite different, and it's all really interesting. I like the hiragana む. I don't really know why, I just think that it looks cool.
As for memorizing them, I guess I would recommend writing them several times like you are doing. When I was learning them, I found lyrics to several Japanese songs in romanization and I would then try to write, as accurately as I could, the lyrics in Hiragana. It was better than just writing the same Hiragana over and over again. Maybe you could try that. You can find a lot of song lyrics in romanization, as well as kanji and translations, on animelyrics.com. I hope that helps.

Yeah, Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn cause of all the components katakana kanji and so forth.

[DayByDay]

I took Japanese for 2 years and I still haven't master Katakana or Hiragana. Then again, I'm terrible with foreign languages though I find them extremely interesting. ^^;
I remember making flashcards and posting them all over my room to try and remember the characters/vocab words. I like FinalFantasyFan's suggestions of lyrics though. Good luck!

[sdc91]

Originally Posted by greyundrstndng

I've been trying to read and write Hiragana characters (a basic form of Japanese) for almost 2 hours! I'm not halfway done and my head hurts.....
It's tedious and fascinating at the same time. But i'll write a character over 15X and yet my mind just blanks when I try to think of what i just wrote lol

Don't just mindlessly repeat stuff over and over. That's what my piano teacher taught me; otherwise, when it comes time to perform and adrenaline takes over, you'll be clueless. You gotta think things through when you practice it. When you write the characters, think your way through it.

[Apocalypte]

I didn't find hiragana too difficult, but katakana annoyed the crap out of me (I took 3 semesters of Japanese electives). I'd agree with above posters that it helps to be able to connect them with something - for example こ (ko) looking like coins, or き(ki) looking like a key.

Life gets even more fun when it's time to learn kanji!

[Fiorino]

You might not learn it all in one day, just take your time!
I know all 46 pretty well now it just took about a month
of looking at it every day, reading sentances in Hiragana/Katakana,
practising with my computer, etc for it to sink in.

[Vector]

I studied Japanese for 5 years. I could remember characters, sentence patterns, and all of the founding sort of stuff, but I could never remember *words*. It sounds silly but it's just the way my brain works I guess.

でも、日本語はとてもおもしろいとたのしです。

[Lexington]

I took Japanese for a couple years. I wasn't crazy about the hirigana/katakana thing. (For those who don't know, hirigana are the "syllabic" characters used to spell out words in Japanese. So you could put the "do" and the "mo" syllable characters together to spell the word "domo". Katakana characters are similar, but are used for words that aren't of Japanese origin. So you could put the characters for "ma", "ka", "do", "no", "ru", "do", and "su" together to make the word "makadonorudosu" - McDonald's. )

Please don't get me started on "counters" though.

Lex

[Vector]

ひとり、ふたり、さんにん、よにん。。。
ひとつ、ふたつ、みっつ、よっつ、いっつ、むいつ、ななつ、やっつ、ここなつ、と。。。

Yeah, they're pretty nasty.

[Cheria]

Take them a chunk at a time, don't try to do it all at once.
Do you have a Hiragana/Katankana chart? Those help a lot.

[metkigro]

Our school offers Japanese class. I took it for 2 years! The first year was hiragana and simple verbs and what not. The 2nd year was Katakana and complex annoying sentence rules and stuff like that. But I still remember most of the stuff that I learned. In fact I need it for a job that I'm getting at this Japanese Dinner. So luckily we learned how to order and take orders. What helped me learned the characters was flash cards though with the characters on one side and the way it is pernounced on the back, "EE". But just wait till Kanji! ha ha

[Nugget]

I like Hiragana, not so much Katakana. Katakana is a little more tricky for me 'cause there are several characters that look alike (e.g., ツシノン [tsu shi no n] and ワフラウ [wa fu ra u]) and it really messes things up.

But other than a few mix-ups, I pretty much recognize all Hiragana/Katakana characters. I still have a hard time reading it (I read it like "watashi wa... u... ma... o... um...lol). As for Kanji, I only know a select few.

I'd agree with above posters that it helps to be able to connect them with something - for example こ (ko) looking like coins, or き(ki) looking like a key.

Haha, I did that with と 'cause it looks like a toe with a splinter or toenail sticking out.

Thanks finalfantasyfan! and everyone else!
I like the lyrics idea a lot
and im actually looking forward to the kanji because im also learning chinese and they seem similiar...
the chinese isn't that bad unless someone tries to read my handwriting lol

[Psychedelic Bookmarks]

Just persist. It takes time, but when you start to feel confident and get on with it, Japanese can become a lovely friend Persist!

[darkestknight]

Originally Posted by greyundrstndng

I've been trying to read and write Hiragana characters (a basic form of Japanese) for almost 2 hours! I'm not halfway done and my head hurts.....
It's tedious and fascinating at the same time. But i'll write a character over 15X and yet my mind just blanks when I try to think of what i just wrote lol

Hiragana and katakana is considered ok and not that difficult for me.

I could write a complete sentence using all of these.

You know what's more difficult?

Chinese words. (Yes, Kanji is part of Japanese language, but it isn't that much!)

Until now I couldn't write a complete sentence (wo ai ni doesn't count!) in Chinese. Worse, how the hell I could write a 100 word essay in Mandarin?

And pronouncing Chinese words is one of the most PAINFUL task I ever had too.

I'm a Malaysian chinese, but not studying in Chinese-medium schools. And I have a bad learning curve... now you can lol at me!

My first semester of chinese we had to write a paragraph about ourselves knowing nothing but basic chinese! apparently i should have known what 'psychology' was in chinese since that was my major......
and yes i think 'wo ai ni' counts dammit! lol
it makes me feel better knowing i can add those three words to my vocab.
wo shi shudaizi, danshi wo shou zhongwen bu tai hao!
....sorry....
it means im a bookworm, but i dont speak chinese that well.
i have a hard time hearing tones

[FinalFantasyFan]

Originally Posted by greyundrstndng

My first semester of chinese we had to write a paragraph about ourselves knowing nothing but basic chinese! apparently i should have known what 'psychology' was in chinese since that was my major......
and yes i think 'wo ai ni' counts dammit! lol
it makes me feel better knowing i can add those three words to my vocab.
wo shi shudaizi, danshi wo shou zhongwen bu tai hao!
....sorry....
it means im a bookworm, but i dont speak chinese that well.
i have a hard time hearing tones

Of course, who doesn't know what 'psychology' is in Chinese... (Looks around and raises hand.)
Yeah, tones are kind of hard for me to make when I try to speak quickly. I don't know why, but the third tone just sort of disappears when I talk.
要是你想，我可以跟你一起练习说中文。我就学中文学了两个学期了，可是我觉得我说的不错。祝你 好。再见。

要是你想，我可以跟你一起练习说中文。我就学中文学了两个学期了，可是我觉得我说的不错。祝你 好。再见。

If you thought that I may practice with you to speak Chinese together. I went to school the literature two semesters, but I thought I said good. Wishes hello. Goodbye.

ok....i babel fished it....(and i realized i may need glasses). how to you type in characters or actual pinyin instead of whatever im doing lol?
i need to learn more...
and thanks for the offer, i think...

lol, i think my third tone is over emphasized while my fourth tone is none existent!