Recommendation for learning just katakana?

16 comments

1. For me I just used quizlet to study and use the write tool most flash card apps would work as well

2. For me, for something like this, I would just go with old school flashcards.

3. I’m guessing your country has some sort of division within, like states or provinces. I manage to better learn katakana by reading those, because I already knew what I was trying to read and had an image asociated with the word, so I could actually relate the hard katakanas with something, specially those that are not really like their hiragana counterparts.

   Is more of an excersice than a method, but it did a lot for me (I’m the kind of learner that struggles more with katakana than with kanji, to this day haha).

4. I created a “Matching pairs/Memory” game. Wrote the syllabary on 1″x1″ poster board cards then the pronunciation on another set of cards and played to find and match the pair. In less than 4 days I had memorized them.

   I did the same for some radicals and kanjis

5. https://www.hiraganaquiz.com/ is really good. It lets you choose between hiragana and katakana. Basically it just shows the symbol and then you have to type in the answer yourself, and it will let you know whether you got it correct or not.

6. Here is a quiz without multiple choice: [https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/](https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/)

   Also the mnemonics here are super helpful: [https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/)

   I learned katakana here in like one day, got 100% on the quiz after a few tries, and have never had any problems since. I still go back and do the quiz from time to time to refresh since I don’t encounter katakana as much as hiragana in my studying. I recommend doing both font options, the kana can change appearance quite a bit.

7. i basically sorted them visually and assigned some associations to them .

   シン
   ソツ
   ノ

   カ ~ か
   テ ~ 手
   セ ~ せ

   ワウフ

   etc etc

   i don’t think i’ve ever completed that task though , so i still have issues with it occasionally

   but i did the [same for hiragana](https://caryoscelus.github.io/linguistic/2018/04/04/guide-to-hiragana.html) and haven’t had much trouble with it since

8. [realkana.com](https://realkana.com) is how I did it

9. google is pretty good

   also check out: pen & paper

10. Japanesepod 101 has free videos that help you remember the kana

11. Low tech approaches still work. I bought a couple 100 yen practice notebooks, and wrote each set over and over again in both until I memorized them, both reading and writing. I did this with Hiragana first. The difference is that I’d write the Hiragana set first at the top once and the Katakana underneath in the column to the bottom of the page. That way I’d set myself up to associate the ‘equivalent’ sound.

12. The kanji study app has quizzes for just remembering how to write and recognize katakana, also tests you on stroke order

    I do a weekly refresh on my katakana, and the quiz I use makes the sound of a katakana and you have to write it out with proper stroke order.

13. I use the app Kana, you can practice Hiragana and Katakana. Available input methods for the quiz are Easy (multiple choice), Hard (keyboard input for reading, drawing input for writing) and Automatic (Hard if you got the question right last time, easy if not). Writing and drawing helped me a lot!
    I use it on iOS, don‘t know if there‘s an Android version as well.

14. handwriting practice helps. learning the stroke order and making them look clean and correct is a kinesthetic sensory input that is a different kind of learning than just rote memorization. muscle memory can help with all forms of learning. i recommend this for kanji as well.

15. I’ve used a combination of three things.

    1. Duolingo – click on the あ at the bottom of the screen in the Japanese course and you can learn hiragana and katakana using their SRS System.

    2. This game called type kana- https://lab.fleon.org/type-kana/.

    3. Writing them over and over again in a notebook and writing out words in katakana

16. I learned hiragana and katakana at the same time. I primarily focused on the sounds themselves and then associated each sound with 2 characters – one hiragana and one katakana. I figured this would be much like learning roman sounds and associating lower and upper case alphabet characters.

    Basically, I learned one row per day (starting with [あ,い,う,え,お]) and wrote out the hiragana & katakana characters over and over until I thought I knew them. Then I quizzed myself using the [https://realkana.com/](https://realkana.com/) app (just selecting the row(s) I wanted to quiz on).
    Next day I wrote out all the rows previously learned and then learned a new row – quizzing myself again at the end by selecting all rows learned so far.

    Repeat until all rows done. About 10 days of work. Finally, for a few weeks after, I wrote them all out again once per week and quizzed myself after – simple SRS. Then I did it once monthly, or whenever I detected some fading of memory.