かな Practice한국어KOKana reading
Where the letters came from, how the sounds shift, stroke order, study plans — the things that trip you up while practicing. 27 articles
Letters
Where kana came from and how the shapes work
- Hiragana is kanji written in a hurryあ comes from 安, か from 加. All 46 characters are cursive kanji — knowing the source makes the shapes stick.
- Katakana is a fragment of a kanjiHiragana smoothed a whole kanji down. Katakana just cut a few strokes out of one — which is why it looks sharp and short.
- Seven hiragana pairs that trip people upぬ vs め, れ vs わ vs ね. The difference is usually a single loop — you just need to know where to look.
- How to tell シ ツ ソ ン apart for goodIt is not about how many dots. It is about which direction you draw — and the matching hiragana tells you.
- The gojūon is a map, not a listMemorize 46 characters one by one and you do 46 jobs. Learn the grid first and it becomes five columns times ten rows.
- Why Japanese mixes three scriptsIt looks inconvenient, but there is a reason: in a language without spaces, switching scripts does the job of spacing.
Sounds
How the sounds shift when you read
- Japanese is counted in beats, not lettersThe small っ is a beat, a long vowel is a beat, ん is a beat. This one idea fixes a lot of pronunciation.
- ん is one letter with three soundsIt shifts toward n, m or ng depending on what follows. You do not have to control it, but knowing helps your listening.
- Long vowels are written differently in each scriptKatakana uses one mark, ー. Hiragana adds a vowel kana instead — and the rule has traps.
- The silent beat: sokuon っThe small っ makes no sound at all. That silence is what changes the word.
- Voicing is not aspirationか vs が is about whether your vocal cords buzz — not about how hard you push air. English speakers mix these up constantly.
- When the が row goes nasalEver heard が sound like "nga" in an older NHK broadcast? That is bidakuon, and it is disappearing.
- Japanese has pitch, not stressMeaning can hinge on high versus low, not loud versus soft. Nothing to memorize yet — just know it exists.
- The three kana that change when they are particlesKana is otherwise strictly phonetic. Exactly three characters break the rule, and only in one role.
Writing & spelling
Writing by hand, typing and romanizing
- Stroke order is basically three rulesYou do not memorize 46 stroke orders. Top to bottom, left to right, horizontal before vertical.
- How small is small, and where does it goWrite ゃ ゅ ょ っ carelessly and you have written a different word. Size and position follow rules.
- Why romanization differs between textbooksし is written shi in one book and si in another. Both are correct — they are two systems with different goals.
- What gets lost when Japanese is written in your alphabetRoman letters can carry most of Japanese. Two things they routinely drop are the two that change meaning.
- Furigana — the device that makes kana enoughTiny kana printed above kanji. With them, you can read anything aloud knowing only the 46 characters.
- The katakana invented for foreign soundsファ, ティ and ヴ are not in the gojūon. They were built later to hold sounds Japanese did not have.
- What changes in vertical writingJapanese is still written top to bottom. Change the direction and small kana and the long-vowel mark move with it.
How to study
What to do, and in what order
- A one-week kana planTwenty minutes a day for seven days. Finish hiragana before touching katakana — that order confuses people least.
- Four ways to memorize kanaMnemonics, origins, handwriting, shuffling. Switch methods as you go rather than picking one.
- Eight mistakes almost everyone makesLearners get stuck in the same places. Knowing them in advance usually means walking straight past.
- Kana is done. What now?Do not dive straight into kanji. Getting the order wrong here is where people quit.
- Typing Japanese on a keyboardYou type romaji and kana come out. Setup takes five minutes and the rules fit in ten lines.
- Katakana you can read on day one in JapanKatakana alone unlocks a surprising share of Japanese signage, because most of it came from English.