Writing about hiragana, one character at a time.
Practical notes on learning hiragana, building a reading habit, and getting started with Japanese. Written for people actually doing the work.
The hiragana you meet after the first 46.
Dakuten, the little circle, the small ya, and the small tsu are not a second alphabet. They are a handful of rules layered on the 46 characters you already know.
Do you need to learn to write hiragana by hand?
Whether to bother writing hiragana by hand depends on your goal. Writing it helps your memory even if you never need to write a word in real life.
Where to start with Japanese when you know nothing yet.
The most common beginner mistake is collecting a pile of resources before touching any of them. The starting point is simpler than the pile makes it look.
The hiragana characters that look almost identical.
は and ほ. ぬ and め. わ and ね. These pairs trip up almost everyone. Here's why your brain keeps mixing them up — and a specific technique that makes the difference stick.
Is it normal to forget hiragana after learning it?
Yes. Almost everyone does. You're not losing your memory. You're running into a well-documented pattern, and there's a specific fix.
How long does it actually take to learn hiragana?
Most people say "a few weeks." The research says something more specific — and more useful — about what makes the difference between forgetting everything and actually retaining it.
More posts coming soon. New articles are published 1–2 times a month.