Hiragana and katakana should only take a couple of weeks to master at the most if you are putting in plenty of study. Then, onto the first few hundred kanji!

This is me :o This is a really ridiculous but effective way and you have a chance to practice your writing as well. Moreoever, by writing kana and kanji one by one, using your pen, the sentence structure and grammar will gradually imprint into your brain. Also you can read every word out when you are jotting them down.

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I'm picking Japanese up faster than i expected to be honest given my poor history in language learning. I guess it's because i'm very serious about it.

I just spent 10 minutes looking at a chart or of all the Japanese characters in Hiragana and Katakana. Initially it looks like a nightmare to memorise but when you have a look there is a huge pattern to the continuinity of all the symbols when it comes to the 3 letter symbols like kyu etc.



1 question with regards to this though:

The symbol for 'ki' is キ and the symbol for 'yu' is ユ
Likewise for the rest, 'shi' シ and 'ｙu' ユ and so on (the pattern)

Is this how the 3 letter symbols are pronounced?
So 'キュ' would be pronounced ki-yu and 'シュ' would be pronounced shi-yu?

Or are they pronounced how they are written? So simply 'kyu' and 'shu'

Yes, this is correct...though without hearing you say it, I cannot be sure.

Found just the video for you.

It's ok, you still confirmed which way i should be doing it. Mainly just wanted to clear up that they are not split into their initial symbols for pronouncing them.

Even if i'm still slightly off, as long as i'm on the right path before i start going into the finer details.




Can't see a video, must be the work computer blocking it. I'll check it tonight at home.

sorry to change the subject from you but i was wondering if someone could help me? I asked someone if they could teach me the basics of japanese to get me started and they replied in japanese. I tried looking up the meanings of the words online but i couldnt, i think it maybe because she mispelled them?
anyway here is the sentence:

haha combanwa,shibaraku desu ne!nande nihongo shabe tai?

thanks in advance!

This person doesn't know much Japanese. There are serious mistakes in the phrase. S/He is trying to say:

"Good evening, long time no see. Why do you want to speak Japanese?"

whoa! thanks for the quick reply! very helpfull!

To reiterate, this person would not be a good teacher. Their Japanese has a few errors. One really jumped out at me, and another did after I re-read it.