preferably free, i like learning in order from aiueo-waon, not like random order
there was an app i liked where they go in alphabet order and u practise writing, but only the first lesson was available
thanks!!
edit: ty for all the suggestions, i spent my mornibn reading thru and downloading/searching each suggestion and they’re very good 🙂
18 comments
Duo is your best bet
Literally the Wikipedia hiragana picture showing the stroke order, a pen and a piece of paper
And then repetition
This guide is pretty good:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
To be honest: Pen and paper.
Honestly duolingo
Please do not use Duolingo. The Kana are in random order and they’ll also include Katakana too early.
Duolingo, although it can be helpful sometimes, isn’t the best for Japanese learning.
For Hiragana and eventually Katakana, I suggest Kana Drill.
It also shows you words associated with the kana you are learning.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kana-drill/id1208009110
“Write it! Japanese” is pretty good imo, it covers hiragana and katakana + free w ads! It allows u to practice writing+quizzes u on what u learned (however id recommend just pen and paper for writing tbh)
You can do this by yourself in a few hours or days with a pen and paper. And it’ll probably be the best way.
Renshuu is a great free option. I personally liked Memrise for kana even though I don’t like it much for actually learning Japanese. Something about seeing people say it and write it plus the variety in question types made it more engaging for me. For vocab after learning kana, I much prefer Renshuu as it has decks for Genki and MNN as well as JLPT. It also has kanji and when you learn new kanji it will automatically update all your vocab cards that use that kanji!
You can try [kana no tatsujin](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kana-no-tatsujin/id1629772103?l=en)
It is completely free without ads, and helps you learn the reading and writing using SRS
I don’t get the Duolingo hate here. I just started learning at uni and Duolingo was perfect and very efficient for learning both quite fast. My only qualm with it is that the order you learn the characters in can be a bit messy at times but it’s not like you encounter them in the real world in any alphabetical order any way. Fully recommend!
Japanese Ammo with Misa did a very fine couple videos about kana.
Seriously, it doesn’t matter. Almost anything will do. Even just a pen and paper. The difference in time and effort required is negligible even in the short term, and in the long term it essentially doesn’t exist. It’s just rote memorization, and if you’re even remotely serious about learning Japanese you’ll be spending dozens, hundreds or even thousands of hours seeing them over and over again anyway.
Just watch a couple YT vids you’ll pick it up fast
I used an Anki deck and afterwards i used a deck to learn katakana (where you use hiragana to answer, so you get hiragana practice). Honestly getting hiragana down should not be an issue, it could be done in a matter of days with just a few hours each day. Also you will get so much exposure to it every time you practice japanese that it will get second nature quickly.
Pen and paper, please c’mon!
Website: djt kana. You can learn hiragana and katakana for free. You can select the amount to review at each time. It’s a glorious website and you can have both learned in a few weeks.
No app is really needed.
Some people recommended me “Dr. Moku” in person (I don’t know how popular is it here) and it worked well.
About writting, I wouldn’t use anything digital. If you want to write, I would suggest pen and paper.