Writing Practice

  1. Write each letter, paying attention to the stroke orders and directions.
  2. Say each sound out loud with the video as you write.
  3. Fill in all the boxes on every page. Repeat steps 1 and 2 every day until you can read all of the characters and say the sounds from memory. Even if you only have five minutes on some days, do it every day. Do not skip days.
  4. Completely memorize all of the hiragana and katakana in 2–3 weeks.
    (After teaching hundreds of students, there is a very high chance that if you are still working on hiragana and katakana after one month, you will still be struggling with them a year later—usually without meaningful progress. However, students who learned them by heart in 2–3 weeks became fluent and conversational within one year. In two years, they no longer needed to speak English during lessons.)

 

FAST TRACK

Copy all example sentences and vocabulary in Chapter 1 of Japanese For Dogs 1, reading each one out loud as you write. Repeat this five times and memorize.

Then switch:
Convert hiragana words to katakana, and katakana words to hiragana.
Repeat Step 1.

Learning kanji

The best book I recommend is Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig. But don’t start kanji until you are 100% solid with hiragana and katakana.