Learning Hiragana is the foundation to Japanese, It can not be encouraged enough, that this is the first step you take.
At Ichigo we try our hardest to steer away from Romaji. Once Hiragana is mastered, which by the way will not take you long. You may find it hard to go back to Romaji.
So where to start?
We need to get you pronouncing hiragana straight away.
Fortunately Japanese is a syllable based language, each character has its own sound so what you see is what you get. Unlike the English language, take the letter C for example, it has a hard and soft sound like in the words Coffee and Civil.
Furthermore it's foundation is structured from 5 vowels (A,I,U,E,O), which you'll see on the first row of our interactive hiragana chart. These 5 are the most important.
Be careful as they are not pronounced in the same way as in the English language.
- A is pronounced like the "a" in the word "car"
- I is pronounced like the "i" in the word "igloo" or even like the "ee" in "feel"
- U is pronounced like a double "oo" like in food or even like the "ou" in "you"
- E is pronounced like the "e" in "egg"
- O is pronounced like the "o" in "ostrich"
Once you can remember and pronounce these then the rest will follow on quite easily. As they are the same tone but with a consonant sound in front.
The interactive chart below will play the sound of each hiragana character when you touch it. As the hiragana shows, ensure that you listen to the pronunciation then repeat it out aloud. Repeating it will help with remembering it.
*Go to our detailed pronunciation guide which will show you sounds that you already know to compare with.
5 at a time is perfect. trying to remember them all from start to finish in just one or two runs, isn't going to work. Your brain will get tired and it will start telling you that it can't do it, which can lead to you losing interest.
Once you remember the first 5, your brain will feel good about it, and so will you. If you feel good then you'll be more engaged to continue. Then you can complete the next row and so on until Romaji is a thing of the past.
*TIP When you are ready to move on to another row ensure that you revise the previous ones. It will allow them to sink in faster.
for example if you were aiming to learn 5 a day.
day 1, row 1
day 2, row 1 then 2
day 3, row 1, then 2, then 3
and so on.
Learn at your own pace. but with some effort you could have it done in a week. along with our pronunciation guide you will also have some vocabulary under your belt. Great start!!
You can swap over each tile individually helping you with learning in the small bite size chunks.
The top left button above this section will swap the chart between Hiragana and Romaji.
While the Romaji is showing, try to write the hiragana down.
While the Hiragana is showing, try to pronounce them aloud.
These days all phones have keyboards for all languages built in. Go to your keyboard settings and add Japanese.
Japanese has two types of keyboard. One that is western style, this has a Romaji input system. It is the only time you will think about Romaji, but you will still picture the hiragana in your head.
The other is set out like a grid and put into groups of hiragana. A,I,U,E,O are grouped KA,KI,KU,KE,KO are grouped etc...
This relies on a tap or swipe system and can take some time to get used to. however a very fast way of remembering Kana.
Unless you are living in Japan, your Phone will most likely be the main way you communicate in Japanese.
TIP Use the notepad on your phone to practice with the keyboards, that way there is no worry for making mistakes.
*See here for our Japanese keyboard guide.
This is the good old fashion way, also a great start to learning the writing system and stroke orders.
There are a few rules that really help when it comes to writing Japanese kana and kanji. This is covered in our writing Japanese page.
Get a notebook out and just get copying. It really doesn't matter how it looks to start with, you will get smoother and faster the more you do it. plus it looks cool if you can write it.
TIP Use grid or squared mathematics book to help with sizing and proportion. First try the one with 20mm squares; it's a great size to start with. Once you have it mastered then lets get it to a nice handwriting size by moving down to a 10mm book.
The iOS notepad also has good sized grids on there to practice with. If you have one with a stylus/Apple pencil then you can save some trees.
*See here to learn how to write Japanese