Japanese for Beginners

Welcome to the Japanese for Beginners page. Here you will find information and resources which can help you with learning Japanese.

Hiragana and Katakana

Like our alphabet and it's sounds, Japanese or Nihongo has its own. It is made up of 50 basic sounds (which makes speaking easy as the entire language is phonetic!) which are represented by Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. In order to read Japanese you will need to at least learn both of these, including the stroke order (this matters!). Below you will find resources to help you get started.

The most common way which people learn is through using mnemonics. The two links below, one for Hiragana and one for Katakana, will be useful on your learning journey.

Use the website below to practise your Hiragana and Katakana

Kanji

The hardest part of learning Japanese is the Kanji. These are characters which have certain meanings and to be considered anywhere near fluent you'll need to learn over 2000! Of course this will take a lot of time and even Japanese school children learn these over the course of their school life. 

The website that is linked below is quite useful in learning Kanji through spaced repetition and using mnemonics. Similar to any quiz websites you have used in languages up to this point!

Grammar

It is all well and good being able to read Japanese text, however understanding how it is put together is something else. Japan reads right to left in their publications (like Manga does even when translated into English) and knowing how the language fits together is a key part. The two website below can provide a starting point to learning Japanese grammar. They are online versions of books written for beginners.

Survival Japanese

Learning some key phrases before you go on holiday to a foreign country is always a good idea. The website below is a good starting point for learning simple things such as greetings up to asking directions and telling the time. It also has some good resources to support all of the above areas.

Japanese Numbers and Counting

The number system for Japan is quite straight forward. Once you know the first 10 number you can count up to 100 easily. Counting in Japanese is a different story... The link below provides information and some help on the number system and counting in Japanese.

Japanese Words and Verb

The following websites can help with writing sentence in Japanese and learning a few verbs and words.