Learning kanas...

[persil]

Hi.

Since I started visiting more sites about Japan and its language/culture, I decided to learn kanas, because only knowing how to read japanese in romaji seems to be a dead-end.

SO, here I am now, day 2 since I started. I learned the 2 first rows. A, I, U, E, O, KA, KI, KU, KE, KO.

But man, it's already getting hard to remember them correctly. I'm practicing the drawing first, I fill up an entire sheet of each character. Then, I make my own exercises, writing random letters, and then I fill them up, but it's so hard, even though I'm making my own stuff!!! My memory is playing tricks on me, it must be true that my brain doesn't accept these as letters and tries to forget them as simple pictures...

Anyway, I hope it'll get easier with time, and not the other way around, at least not too much.

Anyone in the same boat?

Oh, and btw, I discovered Mac's way of handling japanese writing, it's weird, 'cause I could write japanese by only knowing romaji, but I don't understand the output myself :)

私わ日本語お習う！！！

Is that: "Watashi wa Nihongo o narau!!!" ??

[Gaijinian]

Well, you used the wrong "wa" and "o," but otherwise, yes.
Anyway, good luck! Ganbatte kudasai ne!

[Tomii515]

For me, it was hard at 1st, but I got used to it...byy the way, are you trying to say "I am learning Japanese." because this is how you would write it:

(私は)日本語を習ています。

(watashi wa) nihongo wo narate imasu.

(i hope i'm right!)

[Gaijinian]

naratte imasu

[doinkies]

Yeah, two t's not one. ^^ (put the small tsu before the te)

Anyway, doinkies recommends writing some words with the kana. For instance, いく (iku, to go), かお (kao, face), あう (au, to meet), etc. Writing words with kana only (no romaji) helps you remember the kana better.

Another thing that might help is to associate a different kana with something. For instance, ん (n), the lower part looks like a lowercase n and so that helps you remember what sound it makes.

[Tobias Lind]

I'd recommend buying a (or making your own) set of flash cards. A simple deck of cards with the kana on one side and the romaji on the other side.

You can keep these in your pocket wherever you go and simply quiz yourself with them whenever you find the time and opportunity. It's really the best way in my opinion.

[KrazyKat]

I would mix Tobias and Doinkies' ideas and make flash cards with words in kana on one side and roomaji and translation on the other.

[Mycernius]

I used flash cards and practiced writing them until they finally stuck. Plus I also used a little book called Kana Pict-o-graphix by Michael Rowley. It is a small, thin book (about 2.5 inches by 5 inches) and easy to put in your pocket while you learn.

[breez]

For me Heisig's "Remembering the kana" was a very efficient method to learn the kana. Heisig's method (using these absurd stories based on the characters' form as a mnemonic) has met some critique when used with kanji, but I think it is just perfect for kana (because kana have no meaning in itself).

I got both sets of kana down in less than 3 hours each with the book. The three hours being spread over a course of about a week. It can be done faster, two lessons per day as opposed to only one per day like I did.

At first recalling the characters can be slow, but there is rarely any need to peek out the answer because you can work it out with the mnemonics. With further practice on your own without the book you will solidify your memory and before long you don't need the mnemonics (the stories) anymore.

[Elizabeth]

For me, it was hard at 1st, but I got used to it...byy the way, are you trying to say "I am learning Japanese." because this is how you would write it:
(私は)日本語を習ています。
(watashi wa) nihongo wo narate imasu.
(i hope i'm right!)
私は日本語を勉強しています。is what you use most of the time studying on your own. 習う is when you are a student learning from someone, a tutor, teacher, etc. 　

[persil]

Thanks, I'll try to keep those suggestions in mind. The thing is I work full-time and hardly find the time to do it during day-time. As expected, I'm going to start studying my third set of 5 now... didn't have time to do it today.

As for associating kanas with stuff I already understand, sometimes it works. As doinkies said, I already associated that 'n' like character to n sound :)

Thanks for your answers... I'll do my best! For now though, kanas are still Chinese to me (that's an expression around here, I think Greek's used by americans).

[nice gaijin]

This thread reminded me of the wealth of resources online and on this site for with the purpose of learning kana. Just doing a forum search using this thread's title, I rediscovered this great thread (http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11970&highlight=learning+kana) with a link to a very nice kana learning tool.

[Dutch Baka]

it`s indeed a bit hard in the beginning. but its just drilling yourself over and over again.

ああああああああああああああ
いいいいいいいいいいいいいい
ううううううううううううううううううう

do this one week, 1 hour everyday, and you will get to known them

[persil]

Thanks a lot for the link, this tool will grandly be useful!!!

I finished studying my third set. Now I know 15 :) I could do more, surely, but I am limiting myself to 5 a day, on purpose, to let my brain assimilate the stuff correctly.

I'm starting to be able to read some characters, damn it's fun :)

When I'll be done, I'll really have to expand my vocabulary!!!

[JimmySeal]

For me Heisig's "Remembering the kana" was a very efficient method to learn the kana. Heisig's method (using these absurd stories based on the characters' form as a mnemonic) has met some critique when used with kanji, but I think it is just perfect for kana (because kana have no meaning in itself).
Though I don't share his sentiments about Remembering the Kanji, I fully agree with what breez has said about Remembering the Kana (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/4889960724/kanjibooks/103-2361974-4728611?%5Fencoding=UTF8&camp=1789&link%5Fcode=xm2). I used Remembering the Katakana way back when (they used to be two separate books), and it helped me a lot. I highly recommend it.
Also, you may struggle with kana for a while, but it will get easier. I know that for a long time, I had to read kana very slowly, but now I'm so comfortable with them that I can barely remember how it felt to not be able to read them easily.

[persil]

All right, thanks, it makes me feel a little better :)

I think I'll be all right though, I'm just not used having to rely on slow methods to learn! Most of the time, I can just jump right in and learn quickly, but for Japanese, I have to take the baby steps!