So I’ve been using TextFugu recently (today) to learn Japanese and it said to make a learning/language log. Basically write down all the things I learned (I am writing things that I already knew as well - don’t expect everything I write to be on TextFugu.) So here we go!
Romaji
I’ve made a post on what I think of Romaji but TextFugu said it was useless to learn and while I think it’s good for learning the Hiragana and Katakana syllabries/alphabets my advice is learn Romaji as well as the other alphabets but don’t spend loads of time and effort learning the rules of Romaji.
to read more about Romaji click here!
Hiragana
Hiragana is the Japanese syllabry/alphabet used for the traditional Japanese words. The words that originated in Japan. It consists of 46 sounds. The vowels (aiueo/aeiou) and phonics made up of a constant sound followed by a vowel sound. The only character that doesn’t follow this rule is ん. This is the n sound in Japanese.
Katakana
Katakana is used for foreign words (like computer - コンピューター) Katakana and Hiragana both have exactly the same amount of sounds and if your a beginner you may wonder how your going to be able to tell which is which. The difference between Hiragana and Katakana is that Katakana is more angular than Hiragana. カか - these are the kas in Kana (Hiragana and Katakana) can you tell which is which from what I’ve just told you?
Kanji
The final alphabet is Kanji. Kanji is made up of characters mainly representing words. It was adapted by the Japanese from Chinese. Kanji is the hardest of the alphabets to crack and there are over 2,000 kanji! There are lots of Kanji that aren’t used anymore but there’s still enough being used that if your goal is to become fluent in Japanese then you will have to learn lots of Kanji.