Status
I've been practicing Hiragana just about every day for the last week. I started out doing two new rows a day from the chart. I don't think I was actually comfortable writing stuff from the vowel row until just about day six. I added two rows each day and then reviewed content from the previous rows. Taking @whatamidoing's advice I also practiced writing as many Japanese words and phrases as I could remember. Most were just clips that I recall from anime. Hello, good morning/evening, bye, say that again, it's a secret, thanks, what, etc... I didn't start practicing with real phrases in earnest until about day five. My first attempt at writing thank you is when I realized I had forgotten completely about diacritic characters. For the past couple of days I've been practicing writing out the entire chart, random syllables, and random Japanese words and phrases including Hiragana with diacritics.
I'm somewhat decent at generating Hiragana, but I haven't really been practicing reading any Hiragana that I didn't write myself. So for the next week I'm going to try to increase practicing that while I start adding Katakana to the mix. I suspect by the end of next week I'll be able to resume with the Genki book and making progress towards actually learning the language.
I've also been practicing writing words using double consonant sounds with a little つ and a longer vowel just by duplicating the vowel from the same column.
Notes
Mnemonics
I found that after the second row I didn't need very many mnemonics. I started getting used to the different strokes that make up various characters. I did make a few mnemonics here and there. And I'll be sharing some of those.
か - ka - This looks a little bit like someone jumping up kneeing someone in the head, and I imagine a little stick figure shouting "ka!" as he does it. It also looks a bit like the Chinese character 刀 which means knife which makes me think of Katana (かたな).
き- ki - The stylized version of this looks like a key on it's side.
く - ku - This looks like a letter K to any old school palm pilot user. Doesn't help with the sound, but I remember that it's in the K row and through the process of elimination I can eventually get there.
こ - ko - This looks like two lips to me, and in Chinese, the character for mouth is 口 and pronounced kou which is the pinyin phonetic for the Japanese ko.
After this row I didn't really need mnemonics. Probably due to getting used to the strokes that make up different characters. But I did need a few reminders for characters that looked similar.
さ - sa - The stylized version of this looks like someone stabbing the top of an S in the head with a cross. Not to be confused with ち chi (which I keep trying to type as qi because pinyin...) turns out, chi, upside down, is a q which is how I remember that it's chi and not sa.
し - shi - I don't know why, but this one is easy for me to remember, and I think of death every time I see it, write it, or say it.
す - su - I have trouble keeping this straight from つ and I have to rely on the similarities between つ て と to remember that oh, yeah, す is the S row and the curly bit is like in the む character so I know it's the u vowel. It got easier when I started writing the word です.
せ - se - This one makes me think of 世界 which sounds nothing like it, but reminds me that it's the S row, and remembering that it's the S row and not the K row け, but is the same vowel, somehow helps.
そ - so - I have no mnemonic, but somehow writing this character without lifting the pen makes it easier for me to remember. Perhaps because it's as involved as writing a capital S in cursive...
た - ta - looks like a ta to me, so it's easy to remember when I see it, a little less easy to remember when I try to write it. But that's what practice is for.
ち - chi - Looks like an upside down q to me, and the pinyin q is like the Japanese chi.
つ - tsu - Looks like others in the T row, and looks like a う without the line above it, so I can remember it's a t and the u vowel, but there is no tu, it's tsu, and hence my confusion with す.
て - te - I imagine that this looks a bit like a cursive t transposed with an e, or like someone pulled too hard on the cross bar of a letter e and it ended up looking like this.
と - to - It looks like a toe getting stabbed or a toe being stubbed.
な - na - I have no mnemonic and I have trouble thinking of it as anything other than what the strokes look like, so I'm slow with this one.
に - ni - This look a bit like the letters in written one above the other and then rooted or knocked over. It also features two horizontal lines which remind me of the number two, and the Cantonese pronunciation for two is yi. I know, not all that helpful.
ぬ - nu - This one looks to me like the GNU mascot as line art. The goatee is important though. Without a goatee it's only meh.
ね - ne - This one is a pain to remember. I don't have a mnemonic, but it's got that curly goatee like nu does, so I recall it's the N row and by process of elimination (it's none of the previous and it's not の) it must be the e vowel.
の - no - This one needs no mnemonic for me. It's pronounced no, and I heard it so much in anime and seen it written so much that even though I think of it as an adorable little snoopy head, I don't actually need a mnemonic.
は - ha - I have no mnemonic, this is especially painful for me because わ sometimes sounds like ha. Somehow, thinking about how this is not ほ because it doesn't have the bar on the top I can kind of keep it separate from the others.
ひ - hi - This thing is fun to write, but only its uniqueness keeps it separate from the rest for me.
ふ - fu - I don't care how this thing is written in Romaji, I remember it as a breathy hu. It's even more fun to write than ひ and when I write it it's kind of like putting a 了 inside a 心 but I draw the 了 first and then put the dots on the sides.
へ - he - This one I remember to write but it takes extra time to read. Again, no mnemonic.
ほ - ho - This one is not ま which is pretty much all I've got for it.
ま- ma - It's not ほ and it looks a bit like も, so I know it's the M row, but pretty much I've just been practicing it to remember it.
み - mi - I've got nothing for this one. I sort of remember it...
む - mu - This looks a lot like す, so I remember the vowel, and as I'm writing the entire table it's not so bad, but remembering this one on it's own takes way too much time.
め - me - This looks like ぬ but since it doesn't have a goatee it's only meh and not nu.
も - mo - I have no mnemonic.
や - ya -This looks like Woodrow (the bird from Snoopy) and something is smacking him in the eye, so he yells "ya".
ゆ - yu - I don't have a mnemonic, but it looks like someone stabbing a fish, which is yu in Chinese.
よ - yo - For some reason I think of this as a little duck. I don't know why, but this seems to help me keep it straight from ya and yu.
わ - ha - It's pronounced as either ha or wa, based on context. I don't have a mnemonic for it.
を - wo - It's like a wa stomping a to, so it becomes a wo.
ん - nn - It looks like a weirdly styled calligraphy N.
Diacritics
For the Hiragana that uses Diacritics I just remember that the quotation looking diacritic makes k into a g, an s into a sh, h into a b, and t into a d. Then the circular diacritic turns an h into a p. I think of them as voiced versions, some labial and some not. No good description and I don't really have a very good feel for them.
Plans
I'm going to continue practicing Hiragana using the greetings and other content from chapter one of the Genki text and I'm going to start on Katakana using pretty much the same method I used for the Hiragana.
Feedback
I'm making these notes as I read the text book. If you spot any mistakes, please leave a comment. Even if the seven day window for editing has closed.
References:
- Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese I, Second Edition, 2011.
Previous Post(s) in the Series:
- 002 Learning Japanese - Hiragana Practice
- 001 Learning Japanese - Hiragana
- I think I'll learn Japanese