Lesson #2: Japanese Basics

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This page was created on 9 May, 2007.

An Introduction to Japanese Characters

One of the basic necessities of being able to start reading and writing in Japanese is to learn how to both read and write katakana and hiragana, two of the three components of the Japanese writing system. The third, kanji, which consists of traditional Chinese characters, will be introduced in later lessons.

In order to ease the task of memorizing the 46 hiragana and 46 katakana that are used regularly in modern Japanese, Tokoro has provided the following character tables to serve as a visual study guide.

However, in order to write katakana and hiragana, writing practice is necessary. Therefore, katakana and hiragana practice writing sheets are provided under Tokoro's Lesson Material link. It is extremely important that you use these sheets to practice writing each character out multiple times.

Hiragana Chart


Katakana Chart

A good tactic to use to help you memorize Japanese katakana and hiragana is to visually associate each character with a picture that phonetically illustrates the pronunciation of the character. For example:

Test Yourself!

After having spent a couple of hours (at least!) memorizing and writing all of the hiragana and katakana characters, please test your knowledge by making flashcards of each hiragana and katakana character. If you miss some characters, that's okay. Just keep a list of which characters you tend to forget and then go back and restudy each character for fifteen minutes. Remember to keep practicing writing as well! It's important that you master katakana and hiragana before moving on to the next lesson. Note: There are helpful hiragana/katakana learning tools available under on the Outside Resources page under Supplemental Learning Tools.

Pronunciation Practice

Click on the link below to view a video that demonstrates proper pronunciation of all the hiragana and katakana. Follow along with the video, speaking to yourself out loud clearly. Make sure to listen to yourself to make sure that you are matching the enunciation of the speaker in the video. Try to imitate the speaker as accurately as possible.

Hiragana and Katakana Pronunciation Video

A Few Japanese Greetings and Expressions Lesson 1 also introduces some basic Japanese greetings which you should memorize as the vocabulary list for this lesson.

Assignment
Please record a clip of your voice imitating the proper pronunciation of all the hiragana. E-mail this clip as an attachment to your instructor at: eunnah@stanford.edu in order to receive personal feedback on your pronunciation.

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