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Originally Posted by theraw
I'm tryting to understand the difference between Hirigana and Katagana. From what I've read, Hirigana is more formal or traditional than Katagana. But what I think I'm also seeing is that they basicaly have the same objective: Spelling out words as apposed to symbolizing them (i.e. kanji) My big confusion though is what the difference is between katakana and Hirigana. The only conclusion I can come to is that using Hirigana would be the equivialt using a professional font for typing up report, for example. Where as katagana would be the equivelant of usinf and informal font. Am I even "in the ball park" on this one or am I ay off base?
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Hiragana and Katakana have no difference in levels of formality. Hiragana is more like the "default", while katakana is used for special cases like creating italics or emphasis, spelling out foreign words, etc. You'll see both of them quite often.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theraw
Secondly, and this it what's killing me and keeping from progessing, I have to say that there has been some very good info given thus far, but... I was wondering about somethig else.
I know this goes against the most experienced peoples advice given here, but wouldn't it be easier for a westerner to learn romanji first [or atleast along side the kana]? The reason I ask is that if you were to use katagana and hirigana, and not know what the romanji was (as a westerner) then how could you piece the Katagana and Hirigana together?
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You do not need to "learn" romaji; obviously you are quite competent with the roman alphabet. Perhaps learning a bit more about what hiragana and katakana actually are would help clear up your confusion, but really, all you have to do is start memorizing which kana corresponds to which syllable.
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Originally Posted by theraw
Oh yeah, one last thing. Why does AJATT recommend learning kanji first as apposed to the kana?
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For no good reason
Go ahead and learn kana first, then start working through RtK for the kanji.