Learning Japanese - part 1 (basics, Hiragana, Katakana)

 So you want to learn Japanese?

First advice, don't believe the services popping up on Instagram and Tik-Tok or wherever that you can learn Japanese in a month. That is absolutely unrealistic. They only say this that you subscribe to their paid programs.

It is a long way until you will be able to say that you can speak Japanese.

You can use Gemini or ChatGPT to get help in learning.

"How to do"

* Start with the basics.
* Learn the Japanese writing systems. For a good overview see Wikipedia article on 

• Japanese language
• Japanese writing system
• Hiragana and Katakana
• Kanji
  

If you have read these articles then you probably understand that you will have to go a long way. But a famous proverb tells you to just start and not to be overwhelmed by its length. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". 

* Learn basic characters, grammar and vocabulary.
* Practice regularly.

So, what are basic characters?

• Hiragana
• Katakana
• Kyoiku kanji, followed by Joyo kanji

Hiragana and Katakana

I borrowed two tables from the corresponding Wikipedia pages.

Hiragana

 

 

Katakana

Learn to write these characters fluently before you start with Kanji.

Master these characters "by heart", so if someone tells you HU, you should be able to write ふ and フ. Or if you see ね, you should be able to write it and the corresponding ネ.

They are best learned by repetition, repetition and repetition. Be careful, if you always write them in the order of the table, you might not be able to remember it when you have to do it randomly.

So, I wrote a little Python program which gives me a mixture of randomly selected hiragana and katakana, example き ル ヨ ロ ユ ワ ヘ そ オ モ ら や る す ろ オ...

I see き and write き and キ - and so on. 

You can find the program below and an example output (odt text file) on my Google Drive. If you worked through that text file you certainly can write Hiragana and Katakana.

If you need Kanji writing paper, some people have made it printable (see teamjapanese or reddit or ...). Of course, you also find such papers on Amazon, e.g., if you want it as notebook.

Check back for more writing advice (basic Kanji, words) in the "near" future or subscribe.
 

The python program

import random
input_string = "あいうえおかきくけこさしすせそたちつてとなにぬねのはひふ\
へほまみむめもやゆよらりるれろわゐゑをんアイウエオカキクケコサシスセソタ\
チツテトナニヌネノハヒフヘホマミムメモヤユヨラリルレロワヰヱヲン"

def generate_random_string(input_string, length=5000):
    if len(input_string) != 96:
        raise ValueError("Input string must be exactly 96 characters long.")
    random_string = ''.join(random.choices(input_string, k=length))
    return random_string

output = generate_random_string(input_string)
for char in output:
    print(char)