So at this point, you’ve already powered through learning hiragana and now you need to continue with a katakana self study routine! Katakana is the second set of characters you need to read Japanese and luckily, it only takes another few days to learn them!
The most important factors to learning katakana without a teacher are: good study materials, a strong routine and powering through. The routine you set up in your hiragana study will continue here and it’s important to keep on track so you don’t burn out when you eventually get to kanji!
Katakana can be harder than hiragana because the initial excitement has worn off and it’s easy to mix up the characters. If you can focus you’ll be done with basic kana in just another week, so let’s get into it!
Before you start the katakana self study routine.
And to think, this person hasn’t even changed their notes since we were studying hiragana!
I’m going to assume you’ve already gone through and completed my 7 day hiragana study guide and you’re familiar with some of the ideas I’m using. If not, I strongly suggest you complete hiragana before you learn katakana to avoid confusion.
Hiragana will give you a foundation in how Japanese characters work/sound so it’s important to get through it first.
Refocus your goals.
While studying hiragana you should have gained some insight into what works best for you in terms of study and revision. This will help you tailor your katakana study to be more effective. For example if you found writing tedious, skip it and replace it with reading. If you hated multiple choice cards, replace them with write in answers. Try to keep it interesting and be consistent with your end goals in mind.
I find it effective to make your study into a ritual. Have the same kind of tea or coffee every time, play the same music, sit in the same place. This will help your brain get into study mode easily even if you’re not feeling it when you sit down.
Remember that learning Japanese is a long term goal not a sprint!
Don’t forget to revise hiragana.
Considering you’ve just spent a week on hiragana, it’s tempting to put it to the side and concentrate all of your energy on katakana. That’s not a good way to learn. If you ignore hiragana at this point, you will quickly forget the characters or mix them up with katakana. You need to study both simultaneously now to get the best results. I have included 10 minutes per day of hiragana revision in this plan on top of the 30min learning and revising katakana.
This study plan aims for around 40 minutes a day but you can adjust that around your own learning speeds.
Budget your resources.
As mentioned previously, if your later goals don’t include kanji then you might want to buy the higher priced apps I’ve recommended here. If you do plan on tackling kanji then stick with the free or lower priced apps and save your coins for the harder tasks later.
Before you start studying katakana you will need:
An iPhone or Android to download learning apps
Access to a printer and paper
A pen
Now let’s get to the first day!
Katakana Self Study Routine
Jessica loved that she could do her katakana practice easily on her phone, if only it had actually been switched on.
Day 1 – Wtf is katakana.
Like hiragana, there are 46 characters in basic katakana alphabet and plenty more when you add in modifiers. The sounds are also the same with katakana so we won’t be spending specific time focusing on pronunciation again. Make sure to continue saying the characters out loud as you go anyway as practice.
This is your first day on katakana so we’re only going to deal with the 5 vowels so you can spend more time revising hiragana while it’s fresh in your mind.
Key study points:
Download your study resources. This guide assumes you’re using the apps I recommended in my katakana app guide. Particularly, I recommend Katakana Memory Hint and Kana School or Kana Mind but if you want to use your own apps that’s fine. You need to have a “learning app” and a “revision app” for this to work well. If you’re looking for a learning app, check for mnemonics, pictures and easy learning tools that stick in your brain. The revision app needs to have quick multiple choice tests or typing tests so you can improve your reading speed.
Install your apps and also print out several katakana practice sheets to use later in the course.
What is the difference between hiragana and katakana?
Hiragana and katakana cover the same character lists and sounds. So what is the point of katakana when you can already spell everything with hiragana?
Hiragana is used for: Japanese origin words, grammar points, joining kanji words together, just about everything. Katakana is used for: foreign words, foreign names, emphasis, onomatopoeia, technical words, sound effects, stuff that doesn’t fit in Japanese.
Katakana is kind of like an emphasis on a word or writing in bold font. Hiragana and katakana are never mixed into the same words and you will need to know both to communicate in Japanese.
Study time break down:
Download your study apps – 5min
Learn the 5 vowel characters (A, I, U, E, O) in your study app – 10min
Compare the characters to their hiragana counter parts and say them out loud to learn pronunciation – 10min
Revise the characters in your revision app – 5min
Revise the hiragana characters in your revision app – 10min
Katakana Self Study Routine Day 2 – K and S characters
She decided to take her studies to the next level: the floor.
Ok day 2 coming up! If you made it through hiragana study you’ll know the first thing we do is revise yesterday’s characters. After that, it’s time to jump into some comparisons with hiragana and how you can tell them apart.
Key study points:
Still revising? This is a good point to pause and check in with yourself on how the revision process is working for you. Revising the characters is almost more important than learning them in the first place. So make sure you’re still taking the time every day to skim over yesterday’s work and get in some multiple choices.
Comparing characters After you’ve learned some katakana you might see some similarities in the characters. Several katakana characters just look like pointy versions of their matching hiragana. Ka is a great example of this. Very easy to remember! The flip side is that some of the characters also look extremely similar… like Ku and Ke, so it’s important to take time to get the hang of them.
Learn the K characters (Ka, Ki, Ku, Ke, Ko) and S characters (Sa, Shi, Su Se, So) in your study app – 15min
Compare the katakana and hiragana tables to look at similar characters – 5min
Revise today’s characters in your revision app – 5min
Revise the hiragana characters in your revision app – 10min
Katakana Self Study Routine Day 3 – T and N characters with writing practice
The virtual reality suit for learning katakana was one step too far though. After several tests, Mary was diagnosed with “Katakana madness“.
By day 3 things might feel like a bit of a slog so let’s break it up with some writing practice.
Once you finish today’s lesson you will be half way there so keep your head up!
Key study points:
Revision tips The first revision today will include all of the katakana you’ve learned up to this point. Make sure to concentrate on keeping your speed up. Don’t spend ages debating over a question, just pick an answer and move on. If it’s wrong, take a moment to review and keep going. This will set you up to recognise the characters as second nature.
Keeping up with hiragana By now you might be bored with standard multiple choice questions so if your app offers type in questions or written/drawings then switch to that. If you find revising with the app is getting tedious then switch to writing out any words you know in hiragana. You could also download children’s picture books to get an idea of how much hiragana you’ll need to read. Tailor your hiragana revisions to what you personally find the most interesting.
Writing If you haven’t already, print out your katakana practice sheets so you can start writing. While it’s not a skill that you will use often, it’s a great learning tool. Write out characters that you find hard to remember and compare them to similar characters. Say the character out loud as you go and see how quickly you can get the pen to paper accurately.
Study time break down:
Revise characters – 5min
Learn the 5 T characters (Ta, Chi, Tsu, Te, To) and 5 N characters (Na, Ni, Nu, Ne, No) in your study app – 15min
Practice writing a few characters – 5min
Revise today’s characters in your revision app – 5min
Revise the hiragana characters in your revision app – 10min
Katakana Self Study Routine Day 4 – H and M characters and mini revisions
The only known cure for Katakana madness is to buckle down and get through the week of study.
By now hopefully you are in a good routine with your studying every day. If you find yourself speeding up then embrace it and use the extra time to revise in more interesting ways. Try to get creative with it!
Key study points:
Restarting mini revisions. If you stopped doing mini revisions throughout the day after finishing hiragana then now is the time to get back into it. Mini revisions are 5-10 question lightening rounds that you do several times a day to speed up your recognition. Try to do them with both hiragana and katakana now.
Mixing katakana and hiragana. Now is also a great time to start revising the hiragana and katakana together at once if your app allows it. By mixing the questions up you will learn to differentiate the characters and make more memory connections in your mind.
Study time break down:
Revise characters – 5min
Learn the 5 H characters (Ha, Hi, Fu, He, Ho) and 5 M characters (Ma, Mi, Mu Me, Mo) in your study app – 15min
Practice writing a few characters you have trouble remembering – 5min
Revise today’s characters in your revision app – 5min
Revise the mixed hiragana and katakana characters in your revision app – 10min
Katakana Self Study Routine Day 5 – Y, R, W, N characters
April wished she had just taken 7 days to study before being diagnosed with severe Katakana madness.
Today is your last day of the basic katakana, well done! Like with hiragana, there is just one other full set of 5 along with a few stragglers. If you complete the lessons today you have finished all of the basic katakana and just have the modifiers left. So get studying!
Key study points:
Left over characters. These left over characters are used in the same ways that they were in hiragana. The W and N characters are used a lot less often as katakana is not used for grammar points.
Similar characters. Today you also have the last of some very similar characters: N, No, So, Tsu and Shi. All of these look a bit like smiley faces but they differ in the number and direction of the flicks. These are all characters that are used often so be sure to look closely so you can tell the difference!
Study time break down:
Revise characters – 5min
Learn the 5 R characters (Ra, Ri, Ru, Re, Ro), the 3 Y characters (Ya, Yu, Yo), the 2 W characters (Wa, Wo), and the N character in your study app – 15min
Practice writing a few of the characters – 5min
Revise today’s characters in your revision app – 5min
Revise the mixed hiragana and katakana characters in your revision app – 10min
Katakana Self Study Routine Day 6 – Modifiers – Dakuten and Handakuten
Rachel was no fool, she knew from health class that Katakana Madness was spread via study contact through windows. Only regular old book study for her!
Yep you guessed it, the 46 regular katakana are also joined by dakuten and handakuten to form new sounds. For this lesson make sure you have a hiragana chart that includes modified characters. The idea is exactly the same as hiragana so if you understand the concept you can skip the key study points.
Key study points:
Understanding modifiers – Dakuten The first of the modifiers we will study today are called Dakuten. They look a bit like quotation marks and you add them to top right of the regular katakana to change the sound. They are used on characters that start with K, S, T and H. The same basic sound concepts apply, they just change the consonants so K>G, S>Z, T>D and H>B.
Understanding modifiers – Hadakuten The second kind of modifier for today is Hadakuten, it looks like a little circle and it’s used to change H sounds to P.
Study time break down:
Revise characters – 5min
Learn the 5 kinds of modified characters that use Dakuten and Hadakuten – 15min
Revise today’s characters in your revision app – 5min
Revise the mixed hiragana and katakana characters in your revision app – 10min
Katakana Self Study Routine Day 7 – Modifiers – Diagraphs
Well done on making it to the last day!
As with hiragana, our last day is spent studying diagraphs. They are used in exactly the same way here so they might also not be included in your flash card app. If you can’t revise them that way then just try writing them down.
Key study points:
Understanding modifiers – Diagraphs Ya/Yu/Yo Diagraphs are a kind of mini character that’s put after the main katakana. It changes the vowel sound on the end, so for example Ki+mini ya = Kya sound. You can do this with Ya, Yu or Yo, just check your katakana chart to see which other characters it works with.
Understanding modifiers – Diagraphs Tsu The tsu character is a little different. When Tsu is used as the mini character, it means that the next character’s consonant is double long. So Ki-mini tsu-Ko becomes ki-kko when you pronounce it.
Study time break down:
Revise characters – 5min
Learn the Y and Tsu modified characters in your study app – 15min
Practice writing a few of the characters – 5min
Revise today’s characters in your revision app – 5min
Revise the mixed hiragana and katakana characters in your revision app – 10min
Congratulations you’ve finished learning katakana through self study!
Katakana Madness symptoms include being awkwardly surprised at flags. If symptoms persist please see your medical professional. Then go learn kanji.
Second week of Japanese study is DONE! You have officially added katakana to the Japanese systems you know! That’s over a hundred characters you’ve learned in just 2 weeks: CONGRATULATIONS!
“Finishing” is kind of misleading though, this isn’t the end of kana. When you move on to your next lessons you need to continue to revise your katakana and hiragana until it’s embedded in your brain as a second nature.
Now what? How do I apply this? Kanji?
Hell yeah the next step is kanji and there is no time for a break! I suggest jumping right into kanji the next day but if you do need an information holiday just do a few days of kana revision before you move on.
Don’t take any actual days off though, stick to the 30 minutes a day and keep your motivation high! Now you should be able to sound out some easy words. Try writing your name in katakana, check out some Japanese social media to see kana in the wild and try have some fun with it.
My next study guide will show you how to integrate kanji, vocabulary and grammar into your study so stay tuned!
The main point is to keep studying in the mean time until you can recognise and read hiragana and katakana as easily as English.
Once you’re finished with hiragana apps, you’ll be ready for Katakana study apps! But should you just use the same apps or are there katakana focused ones that you should be learning with?
The criteria I judge katakana apps on is the same as hiragana: includes a fun way to learn, allows reviews and has a clean design. Once you finish with katakana you won’t need these apps anymore so they just need to motivate you enough to get you through the second stretch!
Some of these apps will be the same that you used for hiragana and some are just katakana focused. Make sure you click the links to get the right ones because they all have very similar names!
These guides will change over time as I update them with new apps I’ve tested. If you’re looking for an idea of how long it will take to learn katakana check out my earlier post.
Best Free Apps To Learn Katakana.
The first category of katakana study apps we’re looking at is completely free! These apps don’t have paid upgrades and are just as good as thier paid counterparts. Learning Japanese on a budget can be tough but it is definitely do-able. It’s better to put money into learning kanji than kana because it’s a longer part of your journey and can be very tedious if you don’t have a way to keep it fun.
This app will be familiar to you if you did hiragana with it’s counterpart. The series is made by the Japan Language Institute and includes mnemonics, quizzes and kana tables. This is one of my favourite apps because it features visual mnemonics drawn with the characters. A native speaker pronounces the character and you can flip the cards to see the drawings side by side.
Quizzes include reading, listening and reversed multiple choice. They have a review period after each answer so you can really secure things in your memory. There is also a quiz for similar looking characters which is a great point for beginners.
Once you finish with your katakana there is also a follow up with beginner kanji. It’s great to be able to grow within a series of apps once you find your ideal learning methods.
Covers: Katakana Design: Nice design, coloured backgrounds with black and white illustrations that stand out. Learning style:Review the mnemonics at your own pace then try the quizzes. Mnemonics included: Yes, illustrated.
Good:Clean modern design. Bad: Some of the mnemonics are a bit of a stretch, it would be nice having a voice over to read the captions.
This is the best free option for katakana! The mnemonics are a big plus and the design is clean and easy to use. I think this is the best of all of the katakana apps and it’s free!
This is a great app for revising and tracking your learning. It features detailed statistics on your time reviewing so you can adjust your study. The downside is that there are no mnemonics or ways to learn outside of staring at the kana table. Within the kana table you can select a character for more information, try drawing it and listen to pronunciation.
The app features a variety of tests including multiple choices, type in answers and drawing. Like most apps, the drawing tests are self marked against the guides. I find the most useful tests to be typed in answers, it’s a nice middle ground between multiple choice and writing. It also helps link the character in your brain with how you will usually be using it.
Covers: Hiragana and katakana Design: Clean, modern and simple. Easy to read. Learning style:Learn via a kana chart, then various quizzes. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Great design, lots of statistics about your learning. Reminders and written answers available. Bad: No mnemonics or interesting ways of learning the characters.
This is a really interesting app as it focuses on learning through quick guided repetition. When starting a new game you are presented with a number of customisation options. You are then shown a character with 6 answers. When you are learning, only the correct answer is clickable. As you review, more items are clickable and you can only progress with the right answer. It’s an effective way to build up quick recognition.
My favourite part of this app is the speed that you can review items. The animation is really quick so there’s no waiting around for the next question. The faster you go through the better you will be at reading.
Covers: Hiragana and katakana Design: Clean and simple. Learning style:Learn via guided repetition and speed reviews. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Simple design, speedy, fun reviews. Bad: No mnemonics, no kana chart and no sound.
Fun for reviewing and getting yourself speedy with recognition. As there is no sound you will need to already know how to pronounce the kana.
Honourable mentions:
Kana School– Another great app for revisions with both hiragana and katakana.
Best paid katakana study apps.
The free resources are great but sometimes it’s worth paying extra for curated content. The apps in this section are fantastic learning tools but they average around AU$15 to unlock. You may already have them from learning hiragana so the prices aren’t that bad when you can learn both.
Dr Moku is a popular system of Japanese apps known for their mnemonics. The lessons are katakana mixed with pictures and funny captions to help them stick in your mind. You view the picture while Dr Moku reads the mnemonic. His over the top voice acting and annunciation helps keep things memorable. If you flip the card you can view an animation of the stroke order.
For revising katakana you’ve learned, there are multiple choice quizzes for reading and listening. Writing practice is via a self graded test.
Additional quick reference and audio charts are included along with some common words and phrases. If you enjoy the style of the app, there are other apps for kanji and phrases once you finish katakana.
Covers: Katakana (25% included in free app, the rest unlocked with paid upgrade) Design: Bright and simple. Easy to see each item for review. Fun drawings. Learning style: Review at your own pace, then timed multiple choice quiz. Mnemonics included: Yes.
Good: Good mnemonics, written practice included. Family of apps available if you like the style. Bad:Lots of upgrade banners and ads for the other apps. The app design can get tedious with several selection screens before you start most options.
Price:Free download, AU$7.99 upgrade to unlock all hiragana. Bundle in the app store with the katakana and phrases apps for $12.99
A fun way to learn katakana via mnemonics. The free version is ok to test but you will need to upgrade to learn the whole alphabet. The bundle is good value if you are also needing hiragana.
You might be familiar with this app as it covers hiragana, katakana and also some vocabulary grammar and kanji. The lessons are worked in sections and the style of learning via repetition.
The app doesn’t include mnemonics but there are a variety of multiple choice formats to teach you with active repetition. The reviews are in an SRS style but I’m not sure on the frequencies.
During the quizzes you can toggle an option for written answers which begins with you tracing as you learn and then progressively fades the character until you are remembering how to write it. I find this to be a really effective way to memorise as it holds your hand a bit without being annoying.
Covers: Basic katakana (5 items available free per lesson, others unlocked via paid upgrade) Design: Dark, clean and simple. Easy to see each item in quiz. Learning style:Learn via repetition, writing and quizzes. Review with the same methods. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Clean, modern design. Writing reviews are useful. Bad: No mnemonics or learning options other than repetition.
Price:Free download, AU$2.99 upgrade for katakana only or $12.99 for all lessons (hiragana, katakana, some kanji, vocabulary and grammar)
Great dark design, worth downloading with the full unlock for the amount of content. If you don’t learn well via repetition then I would look for an app with mnemonics.
I still think this app is a bit expensive compared to other apps but the design and speed of reviews make up for it. The app revises katakana (and hiragana) through timed multiple choices. The timing makes you answer fast and it’s really good for improving your recognition times in reading. The design is clean and simple which I love. If you are looking to learn katakana then I would stick to other apps but if you just want to speed revise then this might be great for you.
Covers: Katakana and hiragana (katakana via paid upgrade) Design: Clean and simple. Easy to see each item in quiz. Learning style:Learn at your own pace via kana chart, then timed multiple choice quiz. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Clean modern design, fast pace for improving reading. Bad: High unlock price, no spoken pronunciation during learning, no mnemonics.
Price:Free download, AU$7.99 upgrade to unlock hiragana with modifiers and katakana.
Worth it if you want to do speed reviews but it’s too fast for learning katakana from scratch.
This is the app you need when regular flash cards are too boring. Ok so it’s still just a regular flash card app but there’s also a ninja and some kind of skeleton viking… When you get answers correct the ninja does some sweet moves with his sword to celebrate! If you get one wrong he… kills himself… So, you know, that’s fun.
There is also a reference chart which has stroke order animations for each character.
Covers: Katakana Design: Nice and simple. Learning style:Multiple choice quiz with a reference kana chart. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Funny animations, standard revisions. Bad: Just a plain old no frills quiz system, nothing to help you actually learn.
This app pretty much does what it says: it drills kana. It’s a multiple format multiple choice app without much customisation. You unlock 1 row of kana at a time as you progress with reviews.
The only downside I found is that when you exit a test half way through, it’s supposed to punish you with an ad but the the button only seems to work sometimes. If it’s not working then there’s no way to exit the test without closing the app.
Covers: Hiragana and katakana Design: Minimal and red. Learning style:Not much learning, just lots of multiple choice questions. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Clean modern design, fast pace for improving reading. Bad: Obviously requires sound to use so you can hear the beat.
Price:Free download, possibly ad supported but I could find any.
Easy way to review kanji quickly but I would stick to a different app for actual learning.
Honourable mentions:
Hiragana Pixel Party– A fun way to test your kana knowledge with a rhythm based jumping game. Very cute, AU$2.99 to unlock all levels including katakana.
Katakana study apps not to waste time with.
With so many katakana apps available there is definitely a wide variety of quality too. The apps in this section are ones that I didn’t like or found unhelpful. While they may not be terrible, they are here because there are better options in the apps listed above so don’t waste your time with these ones.
I was a bit sad about this app because it looked like it had promise. The layout is fairly clean and it has interesting stats included about reviews. The problem is that a lot of the buttons don’t seem to work. Full screen ads pop up at random through reviews and when I went to pay to remove them, the link was broken. I would revise this when the app is updated to fix the bugs. Regardless of what I was doing in the app the “End game” screen would randomly show up.
Covers: Katakana Design: Nice design but not currently working. Learning style:Not really focused on learning, there is a kana chart but if you click it just takes you to an immediate quiz. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Interesting stats. Bad: Lots of ads, weird pop ups, pretty broken.
Price:Free download, ad supported, unsure of cost to remove ads.
Could be a decent review app but currently broken.
While this app had good reviews on the app store, I didn’t have a good experience. On opening there’s an ad for a Japanese ebook which I couldn’t close without signing up. The design is very dated and the layout is distracting. The quizzes are standard multiple choices.
It features study and test areas. The information in the study areas is good but to get to each item you have to click through several screens. On the plus side there are a lot of vocabulary items included as examples.
Covers: Katakana, hiragana and vocabulary. Design: Cluttered and annoying to use. Learning style:Review at your own pace, then multiple choice quiz. Mnemonics included: No.
Good:Lots of information. Bad: Hard to use design, annoying to find information, no mnemonics.
Price:Free download, ad supported or $1.49 to remove ads.
Don’t bother, just get one of the other apps that has both good information and good user experience!
My favourite katakana app study plan of attack
By now, you will have mastered hiragana and so you should have an idea of what kind of study works well for you. Mnemonics are definitely the quickest and easiest way to power through katakana so continue on with either Katakana Memory Hint or Dr Moku. You might like the swap to the one you didn’t use for hiragana to prevent yourself zoning out.
After you’ve gotten through the basic learning, it’s time to get quick with revisions. Move onto a combination of Pastel Kana, Kana Mind or Learn Japanese!!. Do reviews until you can speed read the characters.
The biggest tip for katakana study apps is to review as often as possible and try to get your speed up. The faster you can recognise the characters, the faster you will be able to get into proper reading.
Having to slowly sound words out makes reading boring. If you can recognise katakana quickly then it will be less tempting to quit later!
Asking how long it takes to learn katakana is a difficult question as there a lot of variables. It really depends on how effective you are at studying and how fast you want it to go.
On average, a beginner takes around a month to learn Hiragana and Katakana together. If you study efficiently and don’t slack off, you can easily learn katakana in a few days. As some characters just resemble pointy hiragana, you might even end up finishing katakana more quickly!
Katakana is the next stop in the Japanese alphabet after hiragana. It follows the same syllables as hiragana but the characters are different and more pointy. Like hiragana, the base alphabet comes with 46 characters plus modifiers to change the sounds.
Some people liken it to being capital letters where as hiragana is lowercase. While there are some similarities that’s not a totally apt comparison. Katakana is generally used for foreign loan words, emphasis and improving visual readability.
So let’s get into the most effective ways to learn katakana while avoiding the common mistakes.
What is the best way to learn katakana?
Follow these 4 easy steps to learn katakana right now!
Like hiragana, visual mnemonics are the most effective way to learn katakana. Mnemonics are made up stories to remind you what the character looks and sounds like. Because katakana is a visual alphabet we use visual mnemonics to remember it. To come up with a mnemonic you need to look at the shape of the katakana and think of a story about what it looks and sounds like.
The mnemonic I always remember from school was “Sew? Sew button!” for the katakana character So. You picture a button with a long needle and thread sitting next to it. It looks a little like a smile so it seems like I’m enjoying sewing… which is very far from the truth in real life!
The reason that has stuck with me for so long is because it contains several important elements:
An easy picture in your head of what the katakana looks like (thread and a button)
Short and catchy sentence
Emphasis on how the character is supposed to be pronounced (Sew/so)
The key to mnemonics is by using as many senses as possible so it links the new information to old information and sticks. Of course, the weirder and more memorable things you can think of the better!
You can find katakana mnemonics in pretty much every learning app but I think the best ones are personal. I usually make crazy ones up about places, people or things that are in my real life.
How often should you study?
Spending this much time colour coding your notes may push the time estimate out slightly.
Like hiragana, katakana has 46 basic characters so if you wanted to learn 10 of them a day it would only take you 5 days to finish them all!
It can be tempting for a lot of people to just learn all 46 on the first day but you won’t remember them effectively if you do that. For the best results, learn a few characters every day. During your study you should also make sure to revise the characters that you previously learned and make sure they really stick!
When you’re starting out, study can get overwhelming so try to aim for around 40 minutes of katakana a day.
Of course if you have already finished learning hiragana you might have a great routine down by now and be quicker!
Should you study katakana and hiragana at once?
Some study guides say you should study hiragana and katakana together at the same time. While it works for some people, I think it’s better to keep them separate to avoid confusion.
Learn katakana after you’ve finished hiragana. That will give you a jump start to understanding the correct sounds and how the character grid works before you move into katakana.
Doing hiragana first also gives you the benefit of having a study routine in place. As several of the katakana characters just look like pointy hiragana, you can blast through characters quickly!
What are common mistakes people make when studying katakana?
Learning a new language is hard, especially one that’s so different than English. Don’t get discouraged, the top mistakes I see people making with katakana are similar to hiragana. If you can avoid them, that’s half the battle so let’s take a look:
Learning everything immediately. If you get in over your head you might burn out and not remember anything you’ve spent time on. It’s better to think of these goals as long term and try to space things out. By giving your brain a break between sets you will recall a lot more.
With a little practice, you too can write awkwardly about all of the fruits you eat.
Not revising the old characters. Set aside time to test yourself at the beginning of each lesson so you can check your progress. Then if you can’t remember the characters, revise them again. Make sure to continue revising your hiragana too so you don’t forget it!
Using digital flash cards and never writing anything down. It’s not often we use paper and pen these days but writing is important for learning. When you write the character, your brain makes connections with the shapes. If you can see the character in more ways it will be easier to recall.
Mixing up hiragana and katakana. Some of the kana characters look very different and some look very similar. It’s easy to confuse them if you’re not familiar. As a rule, katakana tends to look more pointy while hiragana is rounder. It’s best to revise them together at this point so you don’t mix them up later when reading or writing. Words are not generally a mixture of hiragana and katakana so you don’t want to get confused.
Stopping after kana. So you finished hiragana and katakana? Well done! Now is the time to start right away with kanji! You have mastered the basic Japanese writing system but there are so many more characters to learn. It’s not often that kana is used completely on it’s own without kanji so keep up your momentum and get started on the kanji as soon as you can!
If you want to see if kanji is something useful for your study goals, read my post here on whether you really need it.
What are good resources to learn katakana?
Soon, you too will be able to discuss your love of melons.
Now you’re ready to get down to learning, here are some good apps and resources for learning hiragana!
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