Basics: Hiragana and Katakana

As listed with most Japanese learning sites, I'm going to start by getting familiar with or memorizing the "Japanese alphabets" - Hiragana (ひらがな) and Katakana (カタカナ).

Here is an example of a hiragana chart:

Now let's take a look at katakana: (there is a slightly bigger Katakana chart out there)

For more information, I would recommend checking out Tae Kim's hiragana and katakana pages (I liked the respective wikipedia page above).


One thing I will note is that the alphabetical order in Japanese is two-fold: (look at chart)

First, horizontally: "A, KA, SA, TA, NA, HA, MA, YA, RA, WA, N"
Second, vertically: "A, I, U, E, O", then "KA, KI, KU, KE, KO", then "SA, SHI, ..."

This is useful when looking up Japanese words when they are sorted the Japanese way - dictionaries, glossaries, etc.


There aren't many of these characters to remember so you shouldn't need a program or other external help. However you may want to review the "practice character sheets."

If you like interactive tools, you can check out Tae Kim's practice exercise pages for hiragana and katakana.

*Work in Progress - Interactive tool below*

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