Hi guys, I’m starting my studies in Japanese and after a lot of researches on the best resources / method to study it I found out I’d have to start by studying Hiragana and Katakana.
BUT, there’s one thing I saw nobody talking about which is daunting me and, since I have 0 knowledge, I wanted to ask you to make sure to start efficiently my study.
Everyone’s saying to study hiragana and katakana which have 48 characters each but looking for them online I saw that they have 48 “pure characters” and around 50 characters who aren’t in this category. So it goes from 96 character in total to around 200, which is not a problem since I’d study them anyway, but as I saw many videos with no-one talking about them I thought that maybe they weren’t necessary and I could skip them.
So yes, my question is if u can briefly explain to me what these “impure characters” are and if I should study them too.
p.s. my main goal with Japanese is being able to read it, I’ll tell you just so If it’s helpful you know it.
6 comments
Hi! Listen, I’m 12 days in myself so probably have absolute no right answering questions – but here it goes!
Those impure characters – I’m guessing you’re referring to dakuon and combo kana. In which case, yes; learn them! As they change the syllable, it can change the entire word. I’m sure someone else will explain better than I have!
Just go to a site like Tofugu and use their guides for learning [hiragana](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/) and [katakana](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/).
I’ve never heard any kana referred to as “impure”, so I don’t really know what that’s referring to. If it is referring to things like voiced kana (i.e. た/ta becoming だ/da) or combined kana like (きゃ/kya), etc., then yes, you have to learn them.
If it’s referring to obscure archaic kana like ゑ/”ye” and the like, then you can probably skip them. Either way, the guides above (or any basic textbook) will teach you all you need to know.
learn everything even the weird stuff, imo. there’s plenty of rare characters and words out there, some are neat visually or historically or etymologically. don’t fixate on stuff that might not be critical, but don’t worry about polluting yourself or something by spending a few minutes looking up something you might end up forgetting later. believe me, you’ll forget way more important stuff and then have to relearn it, it’s just part of the process. 🙂
> after a lot of researches on the best resources
> Hiragana and Katakana.
You’re overthinking that. Just learn hiragana, which should take you a few days max, and then start learning Japanese. And learn katakana as a background activity, because it’s not that important at the beginning.
I would highly recommend learning/memorizing all hiragana first, then probably katakana next. Dakuon is important as well, but are pretty easy to remember as far as the kana go
There are two kana that are very rarely used these days, so they’re not often taught in a lot of textbooks and apps. At some point you should learn them though, because you’ll occasionally see them.
ゑ and ゐ are the two kana that are hardly ever used, pronounced “we” and “wi” respectively.