Hiragana-Katakana (introduction)

Japanese is not a very sophisticated language to learn (on a basic level). Once you learn its two alphabet system, Hiragana and Katakana, reading Japanese is pretty easy. What makes it complicated is the use of the Kanji system which is a non-alphabet system that utilises Chinese characters to construct words (and effectively replace certain hiragana-katakana). In this lazy-quick method we will not focus on learning Kanji (please learn them in your own time). Instead, we shall focus on learning the Hiragana and the Katakana.

Hiragana

Hiragana is what I call the native alphabet as it is used in Japanese-made words.

Please take note of the stroke-orders of each character. The English letters (romaji) are used to help you pronounce each hiragana character.

Katakana

Katakana is what I call the non-native alphabet as it is used for foreign-made, mostly-English words. 
 
Once again, please take note of the stroke-orders of each character, and the pronunciations (romaji).

Hiragana-Katakana Notes

As you may have noticed, each Hiragana has a corresponding Katakana, however do note that each Hiragana and Katakana are very distinct in their uses. Let us use the word ‘summer’ as an example.

‘summer’ in Japanese is なつ and this in romaji is ‘natsu’. We use hiragana as this is a Japanese word.

‘summer’ can also be expressed in its Katakana form サマ, and this in its romaji is ‘sa-ma’. Notice that the pronunciation follows its English counterpart very closely. We use Katakana in the instances when we want to express words in a non-Japanese manner.

In reality, there is no such word as サマ. I have just used it as an example to make a point. Katakana is actually used in words that do not have a Japanese origin, and were introduced into Japan from foreign countries. As such Katakana is most commonly used in names or pronouns. Eg. Harrison is ハリソン (ha-ri-so-n)

Take note that Katakana does not follow the English 100% due to constraints in the language. It does, however, try its best to follow the sounds of the English word as close as possible. A common example is substituting non-existent ‘Ls’ and ‘Vs’ with ‘Rs’ and ‘Bs’. Eg. Lion is ライオン (ra-i-o-n)

So that is the introduction done. We will proceed to learn the Hiragana-Katakana characters via reading and writing exercises in follow-up posts. For those exercises, the above charts will be very helpful, so you may want to print out or bookmark this page.