#hirogana

[nihongotravel]

Let’s get started!

The culture I will be studying will be Japan. From a young age I have always been deeply fascinated by Asian cultures. This mostly comes from an incessant need to breach cultures and ideas outside my own. The first time school had seriously acknowledged other cultures in a somewhat unbiased and academic approach was my 7th grade world history class. Before that, any curiosities I had were sequestered to short themed days, countries in the context of wars America had some participation in, and independent study. It was my favorite class as I got a break from the previous straight 6 years of our Civil and Revolutionary war being shoved down my throat, and actually got to learn and appreciate something new outside my radar. It was like the breath of fresh air I needed to invigorate my academic need to learn again, that is, until the next year when I was shoved right back into another basic U.S. history class. Don’t get me wrong, history of any sort is fascinating to me, but when the same facts and people and quizlets are thrown at you year after year after year, you start to get cabin fever in your own country.

After that, I took every class I could learning about countries outside my own, whatever I could get my greedy little hands on. And because European countries were so close to what I was already familiar with, or at least were touched upon a lot more, I tended to stray further into territories I was much less accustomed to. These would be areas like South America, Africa, and territories of south and east Asia. My freshman year of high school I was extremely lucky to have been offered Japanese classes as a second language elective. The next year it was taken away, but a few more motivated of us partitioned the school to allow us to shuttle to the other high school just so we could continue on to Japanese 2, even being on a second bell schedule. Unfortunately, they did not allow us to do this a third time, but with the basics down, I was able to continue my studies on my own, albeit, with much more difficulty and not nearly as much cultural guidance.

Cut to today where I am majoring in both medical science and psychology, and am hoping to get a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language just so that I can go to Japan to teach, hopefully picking up where I left off in my own studies of that culture and language while I’m at it. As stated earlier, there is still so much I have yet to learn about Japan, and I’m hoping that through this blog I’ll be a bit more prepared in making my move there one day.

Some of the biggest aspects I already about are the language system, comprised of three separate alphabets, each with its own letters/symbols and uses. We have Hiragana, typically the first alphabet taught to school children, which has all the basic sounds of their language in an easy-to-use, streamlined alphabet. Then there’s kanji, which has about the same number of letters and most of the same sounds as hiragana, with the exception that it’s aimed at the phonics of foreign words they’ve picked up for their own usage, (examples being words like: パン  pan, which is Spanish for bread, or ホットドッグ “ho-todo-gu” Or hotdog in English!) The last alphabet is that of Kanji, which is the hardest to master and can change its meaning and sounds based solely off of whatever to put next to it. It’s based on an old Chinese picture alphabet and consists of thousands of characters that even Japanese locals have a hard time with because of just how vast it is. These three alphabets make up the basics of the Japanese language system, and just like Americans, they have their own form of fancy letter form Caligraphy they pride themselves on! (https://learnjapanese123.com/japanglish-katakana-words/ for more examples and information)

Outside of its language, Japan has many branches of culture that range and vary wildly to make up its own unique people. Because of its island set-up, fish and rice is the main staple in many of their main dishes. Their clothing ranges from intricate patterns, robes, and silks and unique jewelries. From its Shinto 70.5% and Buddhist 67.2%t-based religions to its numerous seasonal festivals and unique holidays, Japan has a vibrant and noble culture that has a little of something for everyone. (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/japan/#people-and-society)

In studying other cultures, we do so from the perspective of their own culture, meaning that typically what is written down and recorded will undoubtedly be biased either in the way of how that culture wants to portray itself, or the somewhat ignorant version of the person exploring said culture for the first time through their own cultural lens. To avoid these biases, I aim to get my information from a variety of sources and from people from a variety of backgrounds, so that I may come to my own conclusions.

[randoimago]

Hehe got new keycaps for my keyboard and I'm in love with them 🥰

I will say, I cannot read Kanji so I would not be surprised if some of the kanji keys are in the wrong spaces (mainly the 2x3 keys in between the alphabet and number pad keys)

[the-ghost-of-a-spirit]

on one hand, i have a test tomorrow, on the other, studying makes me angry right now, so i cant.

solution: pretend i forgot there was a test and dont show up and try and study later (its catch up during break)

[precuregremlin]

Oh, nice, she didn’t beef her js. But she’s def gonna beef her talk with her classmates. I can feel it in my bones.

[ttte-yurishica]

I'm studying hirogana now, so

I mostly used Hirogana because it the alphabet i mostly know + in Japan cartoons for kids sometimes have hirogana subtitles

If you have correct hirogana translations of their names, I'll be happy to see them

[curejiraiya]

fixating on the ぷりきゅあ being in hirogana and not katakana? it's always プリキュア so the new logo is unexpected

[dearrdiary]

OMG FINALLY SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT KANJI IS

IT MAKES ME SO MAD PPL ON THE INTERNET JUST USE ACTUAL KOREAN/ JAPANESE / ANY ASIAN OR FOREIGN LANGUAGE FOR AN AESTHETIC WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS

BC ONCE WHILE SENDING IN A ASK I NOTICED SOMEONE LITERALLY HAD THE WORD "DONG" IN KOREAN FOR THEIR ASK, AND DONG IN KOREAN MEANS SHIT OR POO-

MANNNN

also my school teaches us basic Japanese in first year highschool so I learnt basic Japanese words, sentences and kanji

there's hirogana, katakana, and kanji, right?

[fluentdream]

100 Days of Languages - Day 6

6. Memorize a poem.

For this one I googled Japanese poems. I found this one that I really enjoyed by Fujiwara-no Yoshitaka. I like it because not only is it beautiful in English, but it's also very pretty in Japanese! I repeated this poem (in Japanese) all day long until I memorized it. Hope you guys enjoy it too!

[sasukepunk]

ok so i know EVERYONE wants a japanese pen pal because kawaii desu or whatever BUT

i am really serious about improving my japanese skills and would genuinely love to learn more about the culture in japan, so if anybody is interested, please message me!

i can read and write in hirogana and katakana, but would really love to improve my kanji and my confidence in spoken japanese.

[andy-macc-blog]

[love-biscuit23]

Trying my damndest to learn to speak and read Japanese! @duolingo thanks for being an amazing app to find my starting place! #learn #japanese #hirogana also to @adventures_of_cedar_devine for being my motivation. <3 https://www.instagram.com/lovebiscuit23/p/Bv9o0iRB_Rr/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ru97p2tmuwka

[bextheboo]

Studied Japanese for 3 days before I realized I needed to learn how to read write and speak 3 different alphabets and gave up and now I just have dozens of flashcards covered in hirogana

[fddarchive]

Julie confused, inked and colored versions.

“TeeHee! It's an outlined version of a picture I'm working on getting coloured. It's of Julie confused, and there's Hirogana script in it which says "Faith Child, Julie-san it is" So its basically saying Julie is the holder of Faith ... yeah. But I do like the piccy! Hee. ^_^”

-  from Julie’s Side7 gallery linked to from the fanart page of Angel of Faith

[looktheresbooks]

My favorite part of learning Japanese was that moment all the hirogana came together in my brain.

My brain went from looking at pictures to looking at words.

That moment of understanding was magical.

I got to relive that childhood moment where you can suddenly read and the door of understanding opens up!

[kirabook]

I used to be able to read hirogana and katakana so easily. I suck. I should practice more. I was supposed to be studying kanji. 

Blerg

[curejiraiya]

DID NOT KNOW that small tsu っ which means double consonants also worked in hirogana ッ. it makes total sense that it does but none of the resources I'm using told me and I've been confused for weeks what sound I was supposed to be reading for them. I thought maybe it was like ウュ but with another weird sound?