Why should you learn kana?
Even if you only want to understand and speak Japanese, it is still a good idea to learn kana:
- Learning kana will help familiarize you with the sounds of the language.
- Knowing kana makes it easier to look words up in Japanese dictionaries.
Do you need to learn to write kana?
Learning to recognize kana is much more important than learning to write them since the vast majority of written communication is now done via typing and texting. I do think it’s eventually worth learning to write kana (and kanji for that matter), but the minimium effective dose for getting started doesn’t require good Japanese penmanship!
What are kana?
The Japanese kana system is a “syllabary”—an alphabet made up of syllables instead of letters—that represents all the sounds of the language.
There are actually two separate sets of kana symbols that represent the same sounds but differ in how they are used: hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな) and katakana (片仮名, かたかな). More on their usage in the next two sections.
Each kana symbol represents either one of five “pure” vowels or a consonant-vowel combination. The five vowels are:
- a = あ in hiragana or ア in katakana
- i = い in hiragana or イ in katakana
- u = う in hiragana or ウ in katakana
- e = え in hiragana or エ in katakana
- o = お in hiragana or オ in katakana
These five vowels can be combined with following consonants k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, and w. For example, the ‘k’ column of kana is as follows:
- ka = か in hiragana or カ in katakana
- ki = き in hiragana or キ in katakana
- ku = く in hiragana or ク in katakana
- ke = け in hiragana or ケ in katakana
- ko = こ in hiragana or コ in katakana
You can see all of the basic kana in the following table, known as go-juu-on (五十音, ごじゅうおん, “50 sounds”) because it has 5 rows and 10 columns (i.e. 5 X 10 = 50).
A few things to note:
- In my version, I list roumaji (ローマ字, ろうまじ, “Romanized Japanese”) at the top of each cell, hiragana on the left, and katakana on the right.
- The go-juu-on was traditionally arranged right to left, but I have laid things out left to right to make it more intuitive for English speakers.
- You may notice that there are only 46 sounds shown in the go-juu-on chart, not 50 as it’s name would suggest. This is because archaic sounds such as ゐ (wi) and ゑ (we) have fallen out of use over the years.
When are hiragana used?
Hiragana are used for:
- Verb and adjective endings. For example, in the Japanese verb yomu (読む・読む, “read”) that the verb stem is written in kanji (読) while the ending is written in hiragana (む). Similarly, the stem of the adjective atsui (暑い・あつい, “hot”) is written in kanji (暑) while the ending is written in hiragana (い). If you’re curious, this particular use of hiragana is called okurigana (送り仮名・おくりがな).
- Grammatical particles. Japanese uses a number of single syllable particles for various grammatical functions, such as marking the subject (が), object (を), or topic (は) of a sentence.
- Replacing rare kanji. If a particular Japanese word uses characters outside the official “common use” kanji list of 2,136 jouyou kanji (常用漢字, じょうようかんじ), it is usually written in hiragana instead of kanji. For example, the word kaeru (“frog”) is usually written かえる even though it has a Chinese character: 蛙.
- Kanji pronunciations of Japanese origin in dictionaries. Japanese kanji have two types of readings: kunyomi (訓読み, くんよみ, “readings of Japanese origin”) and onyomi (音読み, おんよみ, “readings of Chinese origin”). When looking up a character in a dictionary, you can see that kunyomi are always written using hiragana, while onyomi are written in katakana.
When are katakana used?
Katakana are used for:
- Writing foreign loan words. Japanese has borrowed thousands and thousands of words from English and other European languages. Such terms are written in katakana to distinguish them from words of Japanese or Sino-Japanese origin. For example: the word “coffee” is rendered in Japanese as kouhi (コーヒー).
- Writing foreign names. Foreign proper nouns (e.g. people and place names) are also written using katakana. For example: the family name “Johnson” is rendered as jonson (ジョンソン) in Japanese.
- Sound effects & onomatopoeia. Japanese comic books usually write sound effects using katakana. For example: if there is an explosion, you will probably see the word dokan (ドカン), which is similar to the English word “boom”.
- Onyomi kanji readings. As mentioned above, kanji characters have two types of readings, kunyomi (訓読み, くんよみ) and onyomi (音読み, おんよみ), the latter of which represents pronunciations of Chinese origin. In kanji dictionaries, onyomi are always written using katakana.
Should you learn hiragana or katakana first?
Since you will encounter hiragana more often, I suggest learning that set of symbols first.
But don’t make the mistake of “taking a break” after hiragana and procrastinating on the katakana front. You need both for full literacy in Japanese, so don’t delay.
Be Careful With Look-Alike Hiragana
When you begin learning kana, be mindful not to confuse the following look-alike kana:
- a (あ) and o (お)
- ne (ね), re (れ), and wa (わ)
- nu (ぬ) and me (め)
- ru (る) and ro (ろ)
What resources do I recommend for learning kana?
There are numerous books, apps, and sites to help you learn kana. Here are just a few of my favorites.
Tofugu’s Ultimate Guide to Learning Hiragana
Created by Koichi of Tofugu.com, this free guide provides nifty mnemonics and cute illustrations to help you learn all the hiragana. There is also a hiragana chart that you can print and post around your home and office for quick reference and review.
Remembering the Kana
Remembering the Kana: A Guide to Reading and Writing the Japanese Syllabaries in 3 Hours Each is by James Heisig, the creator of the well-known Remembering the Kanji series. The book provides a systematic approach to learning Japanese hiragana and katakana in a mnemonic-based approach that leverages—instead of ignores—how adult brains work.
The Hiragana Song
How about that, a song all about Japanese hiragana! Hats off to YouTube user Miss Hanake for creating such a wonderful kana review tool.
Want more recommended tools and resources for learning Japanese anywhere in the world? Want to spend your time actually learning Japanese instead of waisting precious time searching for materials? Check out my detailed language learning guide, Master Japanese: The Beginner’s Step-by-Step Guide to Learning Nihongo the Fun Way. The guide tells you exactly what to use, how to use it, and why. In addition to the step-by-step guide (available in PDF, EPUB, and MOBI formats), you get 9 interviews with language experts, 5 exclusive discount codes for products I use myself, 10 worksheets and cheatsheets, free lifetime updates, and a free copy for a friend.
“For much of this book I have described my vision of the road to mastery―you start with the fundamentals, get a solid foundation fueled by understanding the principles of your discipline, then you expand and refine your repertoire, guided by your individual predispositions, while keeping in touch, however abstractly, with what you feel to be the essential core of the art.” ―Josh Waitzkin
There are many great books about learning out there, but one of my favorites to date is The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin. The book shares core learning principles that have allowed Josh to master multiple diverse disciplines, including:
- Chess. The movie Searching for Bobby Fisher is based on Josh’s childhood, during which time his impressive chess skills led to him being called a “prodigy” (a word he doesn’t particularly care for as it discounts the massive amount of practice, effort, and psychological tactics he relied on to win eight National Chess Championships).
- Taiji Push Hands (太極推手, tàijí tuīshǒu). Josh has won a number of medals in the sport, the World Champion Title in 2004, and went on to coach others to victory themselves.
- Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Josh holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu which he obtained training under Marcelo Garcia, considered to be one of the world’s best practitioners and teachers of the art.
So what do chess and martial arts have to do with language learning? Quite a bit, actually. Mastering any skill requires that you travel down the same basic road. Whether you are learning the Japanese language or a Japanese martial art, you will encounter many of the same challenges, pitfalls, and joys on your journey. And, many of the same metalearning techniques can be applied. Here are few key learning principles that Josh shares in the book that can be of big help in reaching fluency in a foreign language:
Growth Requires Discomfort
“The key to pursuing excellent is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of comfort or safety.”
One of the most common causes of slow progress in a foreign language is spending too much time on safe, comfortable tasks like reading, flashcards, memorizing rules, etc. and avoiding what many learners find most uncomfortable: communicating with native speakers. The former allows you time to think, look things up, and keep things under control. The latter affords you little time to think, no time to use a dictionary, and little control. But if you want to reach fluency in a Japanese (or any other language), you absolutely must speak. There is no alternative. Passive input activities like listening to podcasts and reading books (albeit it important components of a balanced language diet) will not give you the active communication skills you desire.
This is not to say that all learning will be uncomfortable all the time. You can and should have lots of fun along the way. Do things in the language you enjoy. Discuss topics that interest you. But don’t let fear of discomfort or ambiguity stop you from getting mission critical face-to-face (or at least Skype-to-Skype) communciation practice.
I suggest prescheduling a few weeks worth of tutoring sessions on iTalki so you’re more likely to stick with the habit. As Tim Ferriss puts it in Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers:
“Schedule (and if possible, pay for) things in advance to prevent yourself from backing out… Make commitments in a high-energy state so that you can’t back out when you’re in a low-energy state.”
Make Peace With Your Discomfort
“When uncomfortable, my instinct is not to avoid the discomfort but to become at peace with it. When injured, which happens frequently in the life of a martial artist, I try to avoid painkillers and to change the sensation of pain into a feeling that is not necessarily negative. My instinct is always to seek out challenges as opposed to avoiding them.”
Learning a language will entail tolerating lots of ambiguity and uncertainty, making heaps of mistakes, using the wrong word or a given word incorrectly (often leading to much unintended comedy at your expense), accidentally committing social faux pas, etc. But such experiences are only as embarassing and uncomfortable as you let them be. You can instead choose to not take yourself so seriously, laugh at your blunders, and gain valuable (and highly memorable!) lessons about how the language works.
And just as Josh avoids painkillers to mask the discomoft of injuries, I don’t recommend that you use alcohol to drown out the potential awkwardness of communicating with native speakers. Yes, booze is a powerful social lubricant and can indeed help you communicate more smoothly by lowering inhibtion and second guessing. But this is not a crutch you want to rely on in the long run unless you want to be drunk 24-7… Moreover, since alcohol negatively impacts memory, the progress you make under the influence will likely fade away like your memories of the night itself.
Be Present & Don’t Dwell on Mistakes
“When we are present to what is, we are right up front with the expansion of time, but when we make a mistake and get frozen in what was, a layer of detachment builds. Time goes on and we stop. Suddenly we are living, playing chess, crossing the street with eyes closed in memory. And then comes the taxicab.”
A surefire way to slow your Japanese conversations to a crawl, bore your interlocutor to tears, and ultimately hinder your progress in the language is to get caught up in the moment on speaking perfectly and avoiding (or trying to fix) mistakes. Yes, it’s important to constantly refine your language skills and fill in gaps, but the focus in the moment should be on communication and flowing practice, not grammar and vocabulary. If speaking with a tutor, I find it most helpful if they keep track of my mistakes as we talk but then only review them afterwards . This approach helps prevent the “affective filter” from going up (i.e. affects on langauge acquisition caused by negative emotions like fear, embarrassment, etc.) and keeps the conversation flowing more naturally (something that is far more enjoyable for both parties).
Numbers to Leave Numbers & Form to Leave Form
“By numbers to leave numbers or form to leave form, I am describing a process in which technical information is integrated into what feels like natural intelligence. Sometimes there will literally be numbers. Other times there will be principles, patterns, variations, techniques, ideas. A good literal example of this process, one that does in fact involve numbers, is a beginner’s very first chess lesson. All chess players learn that the pieces have numerical equivalents―bishops and knights are worth three pawns, a rook is five pawns, a queen is nine. Novices are counting in their heads or on their fingers before they make exchanges. In time, they will stop counting. The pieces will achieve a more flowing and integrated value system. They will move across the board like fields of force. What was once seen mathematically is now felt intuitively.”
This is precisely like internalizing the syntax, grammar, patterns, and collocations in a foreign language. At first, you will have to consciously decode and produce phrases. It will be a slow, tiresome process. But with enough exposure and practice, you will eventually develop an intuitive, subconscious ability to quickly construct grammatical utterances. This is the stuff fluency is made of.
Play Like a Child While Harnessing Your Adult Advantages
“I think a life of ambition is like existing on a balance beam. As a child, there is no fear, no sense for the danger of falling. The beam feels wide and stable, and natural playfulness allows for creative leaps and fast learning. You can run around doing somersaults and flips, always testing yourself with a love for disocvery and new challenges. If you happen to fall off―no problem, you can just get back on. But then, as you get older, you become more aware of the risk of injury. You might crack your head or twist your knee. The beam is narrow and you have to stay up there. Plunging off would be humiliating. While a child can make the beam a playground, high-stress performers often transform the beam into a tightrope. Any slip becomes a crisis. Suddenly you have everything to lose, the rope is swaying above a crater of fire, increasingly dramatic acrobatics are expected of you but the air feels thick with projectiles aimed to dislodge your balance. What was once light and inspiring can easily mutate into a nightmare. A key component of high-level learning is cultivating a resilient awareness that is the older, conscious embodiment of a child’s playful obliviousness. My chess career ended with me teetering on a string above leaping flames, and in time, through a different medium, I rediscovered a relationship to ambition and art that has allowed me the freedom to create like a child under world championship pressure. This journey, from child back to child again, is at the very core of my understanding of success.”
While the stakes in language learning are rarely as high as they were for Josh in international chess tournaments or martial arts competitions, they can definitely feel that way. I remember feeling an immense amount of pressure (most of which I put on myself looking back) when I was tasked with interpreting for visiting delegations during my work for the Japanese government. I thought that any mistakes or translation blunders would send me straight down into the flames of shame and embarassment. In reality, most of my mistakes were not even noticed. And those that were picked up were easily brushed off with a self-effacing joke. It took me far too long, but I finally learned to have fun while interpreting and translating, even when there were words I didn’t know and concepts I didn’t understand. I learned to play with the language like a child tinkers with Legos. The less I cared about perfection, the better my Japanese became and the more fun I had along the way. I hope you can discover the same realization.
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Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder is the first book I’ve read by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, but it will certainly not be the last. The book is actually the fourth in a four-volume series on uncertainty the author calls “Incerto”, which also includes the previous works Fooled by Randomness (2001), The Black Swan (2007–2010), and The Bed of Procrustes (2010). Taleb sums up the basic premise of the book as follows:
“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.”
This is definitely true of language acquisition. The safe, predictable, highly structured nature of classroom-based academic language study does not prepare one for the messy interactions that one will encounter in the real world. To reach fluency in a foreign language, one needs randomness, not a lesson plan. Or as Taleb puts it:
“I don’t know anyone who ever learned to speak his mother tongue in a textbook, starting with grammar and, checked by biquarterly exams, systematically fitting words to the acquired rules. You pick up a language best thanks to situational difficulty, from error to error, when you need to communicate under more or less straining circumstances, particularly to express urgent needs (say, physical ones, such those arising in the aftermath of dinner in a tropical location).”
Like me, Taleb places great importance on mistakes, ambiguity, and discomfort in language learning, all essential ingredients of effective second language acquisition that textbooks and interpreters destroy:
“One learns new words without making a nerd-effort, but rather another type of effort: to communicate, mostly by being forced to read the mind of the other person— suspending one’s fear of making mistakes. Success, wealth, and technology, alas, make this mode of acquisition much more difficult. A few years ago, when I was of no interest to anyone, foreign conference organizers did not assign to me the fawning ‘travel assistant’ fluent in Facebook English, so I used to be forced to fend for myself, hence picking up vocabulary by finger pointing and trial and error (just as children do) —no handheld devices, no dictionary, nothing. Now I am punished by privilege and comfort—and I can’t resist comfort. The punishment is in the form of a person, fluent in English, greeting me by displaying my misspelled name at the airport, no stress, no ambiguity, and no exposure to Russian, Turkish, Croatian, or Polish outside of ugly (and organized) textbooks. What is worse, the person is unctuous; obsequious verbosity is something rather painful under the condition of jet lag.”
Taleb goes on to share what he believes to be the most effective language learning strategy of all―being jailed in a foreign country:
“My friend Chad Garcia improved his Russian thanks to an involuntary stay in the quarantine section of a hospital in Moscow for an imagined disease. It was a cunning brand of medical kidnapping, as during the mess after the end of the Soviet rule, hospitals were able to extort travelers with forced hospital stays unless they paid large sums of money to have their papers cleared. Chad, then barely fluent in the language, was forced to read Tolstoy in the original, and picked up quite a bit of vocabulary.”
I wouldn’t wish a jail sentence upon any of you no matter how effective it might be for language learning, but hey, when in Rome…or rather, “when in Russia”.
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My “Book Battle” with Benny at his signing in Seattle.
Benny Lewis, also known as the Irish Polyglot, is one of my heroes. Not only has he demonstrated that it’s possible to reach conversational fluency in a matter of months, not years as most believe, but he lives his life as a full-time traveler, language learner, and technomad, and has managed to build the most popular language learning blog on the planet along the way. Benny’s philosophy on self-guided immersion is right in line with my own, as exemplified in the following quote from his new book:
“…where you are isn’t what decides whether or not you’ll be successful. Attitude beats latitude (and longitude) every time. It’s more about creating an immersion environment, exposing yourself to native speakers, and doing everything you can in that language.”
Listen to the Show
Show Notes
In the interview, we discuss:
1) The release of Benny’s new book, Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World.
2) Benny’s language study plans for the coming year.
3) Benny’s favorite places to find native speakers (including iTalki and Couchsurfing).
4) 5 common language learning myths and destructive attitudes (of the 20 detailed in his book) that hold would-be learners back:
- “Aren’t Adult Language Learner’s at a Disadvantage?”
- “I Don’t Have the Language Gene”
- “I Don’t Have the Time”
- “Language Programs Are Expensive”
- “I’m Waiting for the Perfect Language Course”
5) How Benny juggles multiple languages.
6) “Immersion Without a Plane Ticket”
7) Useful language learning hacks:
- Using modal verbs + infinitives
- Using melodies to better remember phrases
- Using mnemonics to better remember words, phrases & Chinese characters
Mo’ Info
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out Benny’s award-winning language and travel site, Fluentin3Months.com, as well as his comprehensive resource toolkit, Fluent in 3 Months Premium.
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Who Contributed to The Polyglot Project?
This tome of language learning awesomeness contains over 500 pages of advice, tips, and success stories, with contributions from 43 authors, including:
- Yuriy Nikshych
- Shana Tan
- Philip Price
- Peter E. Browne
- Moses McCormick
- Amy Burr
- Ivan Kupka
- Dion Francavilla
- Oscar
- Nelson Mendez
- Luka Skrbic
- Félix
- Graeme
- Paul Barbato
- Anthony Lauder
- Stephen Eustace
- Skrik
- Raashid Kola
- Christopher Sarda
- Vera
- Steve Kaufmann
- Stuart Jay Raj
- Benny Lewis
- skyblueteapot
- Lorenzo R. Curtis
- Dave Cius
- Carlos Cajuste
- Kristiaan
- SanneT
- Jara
- Aaron Posehn
- Mick
- Albert Subirats
- Felipe Belizaire
- John Fotheringham
- Fang
- Cody Dudgeon
- Edward Chien
- Bart Vervaart
- Kathleen Hearons
- Mike Campbell
- David James
Who Created The Polyglot Project?
The book is the brainchild of Claude Cartaginese of Syzygy on Languages, who also edited the work. In his own words, The Polyglot Project is:
“a book written entirely by YouTube Polyglots and language learners. In it, they explain their foreign language learning methodologies. It is motivating, informative and (dare one say) almost encyclopedic in its scope. There is nothing else like it.”
Where Can You Get the Book?
The Polyglot Project is available as a free PDF or as a physical book via Amazon. You can also download a PDF of just my section if you prefer.
Buy on Amazon Free PDF My Chapter]]>