Reading Katakana

[collegecuisineYT]

The link in the description was broken for me. Just letting you know in case you needed to fix it.

[jmark00meipia1]

aussie accent.

[KELLERMANisBACK]

being chinese really helps learning kanji XD Like i could write out sentences in full kanji but i couldnt pronounce it in japanese XD

[562honeybunny]

hiragana and katakana are easy but kanji is impossible...

[xxgazegirlxx]

Wow I actually did REALLY good on that :D !!

Thanks :) !!

[shakugannovizard]

If you ask japanese people to spell a kanji can they do it?I mean,if you write only in katakana the sound of a kanji you don't remember will they know what you are talking about? In the same way Is it possible to ask them to spell a kanji using only in katakana or hiragana? Thank you, I hope you can answer. btw Like your videos, Is there a video that mentions what is the best season to travel to japan?

[imtheonlysane1here]

I'm learning katakana rather easily because I associate each katakana with something. Ni looks like a couple of stairs, and you'll hit your knee if you fall down the stairs. Shi looks like a smiley face, so I remember "she smiles." Sa looks like a table saw (ok I had to stretch my imagination for that one). Anyway, I'll have learned all of the katakana in about a week this way. Can't say I can write them from memory though.

[arbide3]

Japanese does not have any alphabets at all. Japanese has three different syllabaries.

[sk8rguy4life1123]

3rd one on the second column... i see a smiley :)

[blanbproductionshd]

when ever i take out my alphabet in class because i have nothing to do ever single person withing viewing distance has to look. puzzled face, say ammmm.....what the hell, and always always always has to point and say the TSU looks like a happy face.

also now that it has become know that im learning everybody bugs me asking me what this or that is in japanese. it gets annoying especily when its a rude comment or i dont know it and i have to make up jiberish to shut them up

[Turpat]

It took me 5 days to learn it. Easy as hell :)

You have to imagine something that reminds you single sing

[AsianLolitaFetish]

I'll never be able to read and understand this. T_T

[Pomelopeel]

@AsianLolitaFetish You will, if you don't give up. It's not as difficult as it looks.

[AnimeH1ts]

Hmm I always thought that learning Hiragana was the best and first thing to do as a beginner, but there's something I really don't understand, why make 2 alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana) that represent pretty much the same vowels and syllables? I'm learning Hiragana now, and then I'll have to learn Katakana but I personally don't know why we should learn 2 alphabets that have the same content so to speak

[paralukad3]

hi,everyone can somebody translate this word DESTINY to japanese word or letters coz i want to have a tattoo using this word destiny in japanese letters.

[VladPayne]

Favorited!

[samiyam318]

There's a free online no-strings flash-card program called "Dream Kana." It allows you to work on either kana set or both of them at the same time. You just install it on your computer. It's pretty good.

[Lazerdraggg]

"tu" looks like a smiley face

[you7tube24]

how do i get a chart like the one you have? i tried looking for it in on the link and i can not find it.

[animegurl15508]

Romaji is the easiest way to read Japanese for people who don't speak it. It's the romanization for Japanese words (using the English alphabet). It IS cheating so to speak… but hey…

[screener123]

dude i got a print out of katakana and hiragana and the symbols are different but the sound in the same is that right

[MikiMikiRawrFandubs]

whats romanji then

[peaches2034]

@MikiMikiRawrFandubs

English letters =]

[MikiMikiRawrFandubs]

@peaches2034 Thanks :)

[RiseAgainst90]

Can someone answer my question? I just learned hiragana and i thought katakana was to be able to write and pronounce foreign words. Why are all the sounds that hiragana cover also in katakana?

[peaches2034]

@RiseAgainst90

they use a mixture of katakana and hiragana as well as kanji in words and sentences. in japanese there are 50ish main sounds like we have 26 (the alphabet ) there fore both writing charts (hiragana and katakana) sound the same =]

hope this helps

[RiseAgainst90]

@peaches2034 thanks :) im just confused by the fact that you can make all the sounds with 1 of the alphabets, it's actually pointless to have 2 alphabets then :P

[peaches2034]

@RiseAgainst90 yeahh kind of it makes it easier to recognise words tho, especially as they have no spaces between their words and often continue one word over the line. katakana is used a lot in advertising. and with kanji there are thousands of symbols which have 2 readings TT^TT but they have the same sounds as katakana and hiragana.

[joystickdotnet]

Hey thanks a lot for your videos. Very useful for learning katakana and hiragana. I started studying Katakana a week ago and I know around 15-20 kana by heart now (reading and writing them). Hey, it's a start right? :)

[tabguy14]

Kanji's a bitch... If you learn the first THOUSAND or so, you're good.

[takatoekoe]

i did hiragana first then katakana

i recommend doing hiragana first cuz i have no problem learning katakana :)

[SwordXEvil]

2:58 hoe

[sebamax96]

Hiragana and Katakana rulez!(specialy Hiragana :D) kanji is sooooooooooo big and the caracters are ugly :D

[MyAnimation0]

actually, there are four types of Japanese languages. the three you mentioned, and romanji, which simply takes English letters and spells them into Japanese words, as most popular, otaku, baka, and more. ...but then again, what do I know. I've been researching Japanese for only a month and all I can really say is "I LIKE CATS." TT^TT

[Sleepover1997]

Ok im so confuse the little symboles in the box u have i have it in my chart but i dont have the other ones in my chart so i need to learn them to? cuz iknow the other onez

[Sleepover1997]

Im kinda confuse i have difernt symbols in my hiragnan chart??

[mybigwang1]

Liked and saved

I had the same problem just as u did

[xxthexnightmarexx]

Katakana is for forign words, and hiragana is for original Japanese. Katakana is useful because once you can read them, and say them out loud, it would be english that just sounds broken. This is useful on food items, and fun to read on products in walmart.

[neoman96]

Ok I'm confused. I don't understand why there is a need to use katakana at all. It seems to me that the language is all about syllables. Couldn't you have a word in katakana and easily transcribe it into hiragana? Or is it just the fact that they don't want foreign words and new things being written in hiragana?

[jakanism]

@neoman96 kk, let me say somthing. both hiragana and katakana are syllibary alphabets. if you want to translate ice cream, you would first break it into japanese syllables. i-su-ku-ri-mu. now look at a chart and translate that into katakana and hiragana

[cumcad]

@neoman96 An analogy is the English alphabet. We have both sets of uppercase letters and lowercase letters. Your argument is like saying "Why can't we just use a single set, using lowercases all the way?" It's not going to work. Same goes for hiragana and katakana.

[IdeonFukkatsu]

doesnt U with the dakuten/tenten a 'VU' type sound?

[LaNinaNaranja]

I don't have problems with Hiragana, I learnt them quite fast but I always forget katakana.. argh! that's horrible! I don't know why, perhaps because I started with hiragana?

[nathanpitones]

Right now I'm taking Japanese in college and I'm going to continue on so that I can finally understand the language.

[saiahznightz]

can u add subs so i can know how to pronounce these

[SuperMarioBrothers09]

Where did you learn to speak Japanese because I was looking forward to taking a class and learn it for myself.

[Fruitjoke]

Ja, its good to learn them randomly, that was how i had to learn French at school, its the best way!

[goodgamersambo]

isnt there 104 characters in hiragana and katakana?

[Champo0]

quite usefull to hear the pronunciation too :D

i learned hiragana first because i heard that children learn them first.. and the anime karaoke texts are mostly written in hiragana :D

to practice the reading of the hiragana and even of the katakana the side realkana com is quite usefull because you get random characters from the once you have chosen to practice ;)

[HoustonTexican]

Is that an ambulance in the background? From 4:23-4:50?

[southeparkfreak]

@HoustonTexican

Yes I think so, I heard a siren to.

[bigbossjo]

Got 2 other 2 good tips to learn katakana (or hiragana)

1.) Download a Japanese song in written in Romaji and start writing it in katakana at first you'll notice you have to look up a lot of katakana but how more you do it the less you'll have to look at the katakana-chart. This method made me learn hiragana in just 2 days ^,^

2.) Look for a katakana-cross on the web. An easy way to test and learn your katakana. Bit like flash cards but with multipechoose and less work

Hope this 'll help some1

[Achmodethefallen]

this is easi----ly confusing....O_o

[glasseay]

no disrespect but "AHA-HAHaa...." !!!

[J0RDSKI]

Kanji WTF??? Im completely owned and there's thousands, I will never learn all these.

[jeffsandychelsea]

@J0RDSKI And they never say the same thing when used in different places in different words. ;3

[Chuloloc]

Awesome.

[FourAngelsX]

i found this helpful ty

[TBRodd]

tsu is cool

[fcentauri8]

how come there are 3 alphabets? seems like it really complicates things

[m6mkk]

@fcentauri8

well one of them is for formal writing

[Punk7680]

I found the same thing with the Hiragana, and now that I am learning Katakana I can predict what the symbol is because of order and not memory.

Flash cards is definitely the way to go! I made my own and by practicing my handwriting, trying to remember the sound of each and then going through the sounds and writing the symbol for each sound in a random order.

Even so, the symbols can be quite different depending on the font so I still have some difficulty,

[FlyingBagels]

Which form of Japanese (Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji) will be the most useful/used in Japan? Like, for say, i was going to Japan, which one would be the most useful.. or does it matter? or is it good to know all three?

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

@FlyingBagels

Katakana is a good one to start on.

As for "knowing all three".. dont expect to learn kanji in less than 30 years :-D

[aimmaster18]

@TheJapanChannelDcom Actually, it's more useful to learn Hiragana first as it's the basic alphabet.

[lambokun]

@TheJapanChannelDcom i totally disagree, hiragana is the most important, most sentence structures are make with hiragana. katakana is used for names, foreign words, etc.

[DELTA38g]

@TheJapanChannelDcom Can you put a Kanji into Katakana or Hiragana?

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

@DELTA38g

Yes, and they often do.

[xxello90xx]

@TheJapanChannelDcom probabaly the best one to statr with, in my opinion, is hirgana because after you knwo that you can jump in to learning basic phrases and kanji. If you want to have a good foundation before you start learning i suggest learn both hiragana and katakana before phrases and kanji.

[rhonda808]

@FlyingBagels it w0uld be hir0gana because thats the 0ne thats m0stly in japan. cause katakana is f0rgein w0rds. hiragana is m0st useful trust me im japanese(: but katakana is the easiet u sh0uld learn first.

[Julmuu]

i remember first time i learned all hiraganas and then had pause. learned them again. had pause and now some month ago learned them third time but this time katakanas too :D best way for me was to like select the random hiragana and guess what it is in romanji. i can't do romanjis to katakanas/hiraganas yet or write them :S

[Julmuu]

oh yeah and what's not mentioned. good way to learn these is just very simplified and stupid image what it looks like. for example sa for same. theyre almost each others mirror image. :d and shi, tsu remember them together. this worked for me.

[Julmuu]

oh and try google katakana/hiragana game. theyre good way to practice

[Idiomaron]

It's funny that right now I recognize most hiragana, but only a few katakana. Anyway, what you said about character charts makes a lot of sense, but I wouldn't know since I learned hiragana by looking at Kanji's kun pronunciations.

This video would have been helpful a long time ago. Thanks for the upload.

[LivingDog94]

1) Japanese has no alphabet as English does.

2) Hiragana and Katakana are _syllabary_. Each symbol sounds a _syllable_.

3) Kanji, mostly derived from the Chinese Kanji, are pictographs.

That being said, your comment about learning the chart and then _not_ recognizing the characters when presented in a word in some other order is a priceless comment. 5*

[MariKurisato]

are you going to start doing a kanji a week thing?

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Will do one on useful kanji.. working on it :-)

[mitternacht07]

Domo Arigato...this is truly interesting but I hope one day I `ll be able to write in Japanese...

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

You are welcome!

Hiragana is coming too!

[yellowvizard]

wen jpanese people speak japenese what are they using are they using katakana, kanji, hiragana or what?

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Pronunciation of Japanese words follows the hiragana/katakana pronunciation.. kanji too..

Kanji words can also be written in kana

[denitson777]

Awesome vid :)

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Thanks!

Working on hiragana now :-)

[TaishaJason]

good vid! I still have a problem after all these years with shi and tsu

[jpzhmus]

hm... i think that hiragana is more important than katakana.

[jpzhmus]

when I was learning hiragana and katakana(about 2 years ago) I've had bigger problem with katakana, because there is a lot of similar characters.

[TaishaJason]

It is in a way - but if you're new to Japan and still learning the language, katakana will help you more at the beginning. It shows up so often in restaurants and menus and grocery stores, that it's worth learning quickly.

[jpzhmus]

@TaishaJason

I think that this is beacause of loanwords.

[pirate9uy]

Holy crap. Now I'm scared to sign up for Japanese classes at my college :o

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Maybe you are.. but that would mean I am too.. because I often have the same problem :-D

[tiannazx3uploadzx3]

-Starts practicing- D: Thanks so much for doing these videos, I really appreciate them lots!!! ^_^ <3

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

You are welcome!

Hiragana and basic kanji coming!

[kawaikurokuma]

whats the website??? you didnt put it in the sidebar!!!!

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

It is on our website.

There is a link in the description now :-)

[AbortedSheepFetus]

Awesome instructional video. Great idea on having them in random order, because I've had the same issues that you talked about (memorizing instead of actually learning).

Keep up the great work! :]

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Thanks :-)

[SilverSprocketRB2]

lol wtf look at the 3rd one on the 3rd row it looks like a smiley face also you should make a video about kanji

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Kanji video would go for 3 weeks!! :-D

I will make one about useful kanji... "exit" "enterance"

"men's" "Women's" etc

[Fearrah91]

Thank you so much , i apreciate your effort

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

You are welcome :-)

Hiragana is coming!

[TheTwelfthDoctor]

Sorry but i'm not even going to try this,

i learned my own language; Dutch

and i learned English,

i tried to learn German, French and Spanish, but i failed and those languages are in my own alphabet.

=]

[Deathscythehell85]

I might need practice

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Stick it in your favorites and practice up!

[thestuffz]

nice video! it was nice of your girlfriend to help out. has she learned any english from you yet? lol

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Not really.. we live in Japan so Japanese is the priority.

[Afro3200]

u should put the signs in every letter, kuz some times i get the wrong sound

[TheCharleycat]

ka, kee, koo, kay , cock? lol

[WOOF1234567891]

No offense but, i cant ealy hear the voice of the letters properly , it sounds like she could be saing two diffrent words . . . , could you please upload the link in your discription on the website / thing that lets you learn japanese , THANKS : D

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

The list of katakana is on our website forum.

It shows the romanji for each character.

The voice was a Japanese person.. Japanese is hard to understand, isn't it :-)

[WOOF1234567891]

lol ohhhh, and plus i have sore throat and my 1 of my ears is blocked, thats why im not in school atm LOL, but thanks, ill chek out ur forum now : D

[5starrater1]

I once heard that coca cola has a strange meaning when translated into Japanese - can you comment?

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

They call it ko-ra.

[HeWhoLovesTheWeb]

tsu looks like a smiley face ^^

[Lolismad]

it's pretty awesome to be able to learn japanese at school, learning Hiragana atm.

[TheVGReviewer]

Great video, this will definitely get loads of views and ratings, by they way is that Rosetta Stone audio I hear??? lol great program!

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

No, it is my girlfriend.

[TheVGReviewer]

Oh, lol thats kick ass, cause she sounds just like the voice-over for Rosetta Stone. Still yet awesome video.

[Degenskonto]

Google Mnemosyne Project and you get a program that does electronical flashcards, its awesome for learning something like Katakana, Hiragana and some Kanji, and the best part is that someone else already made these flashcards AND MANY OTHERS!

Just go through them once a day and you'll have em down in no time!

[satay71]

Thanks for this.

You are absolutely right about learning the pattern. I always felt that way, so this video is really useful.

Thanks again!

[adam99pl]

Hmm katakana is much harder to remember than the spelling hiragana i start on hiragana and more remember on this but on say "a, i, u ..." is me easy because it is identical in 90% to Polish pronunciation. Dish, read the text in hiragana but I do not know what it means because I am still weak vocabulary entries, and i not a perfect on english ^^

[DaSkateChannelTV]

私はいつもあなたのビデオを見て、すべてのハードワークを続ける­お楽しみください

[NinjitsuLlama]

YAY i slightly understood that! xDD

[schroter5]

Thanks alot:)

this helps quite abit, I think i might watch this every day till i get it.

Is this all the characters in Katakana?

could you possibly make another quickvideo of you maybe using them together taking and writing maybe a sentance, that would really help haha.

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Yes, that is all of them.

When you can remember them all I will make a hiragana one :-)

[schroter5]

Thank you, that would be amazing.

My vocab is pretty terrible, could you make a video where you say what every thing is in japanese? haha jk

it will comein time im sure

[KipzClaps]

コ!

[MGOotaku]

Katakana is mostly used when saying things in "English in Japan" so like...

Coffee in Japanese they use Katakana (コーヒ) so mostly every american word is Katana in Japan

[darkangelofdeath14]

did you take classes to learn japanese and if you did how much did it cost???

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Never had a lesson..

that is why it is so bad :-)

[darkangelofdeath14]

how'd you learn

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

I moved to Japan with a small dictionary :-)

Not the best way!!

[liamliam6]

Hahaha your a brave man! Definately be giving this a better look when i have the time.

[drunkfux1]

Could you do a video on Japanese cinema? I'm particularly interested in J-horror.

[NodnarbRS]

I learned hirigana first, but I doubt it matters...any way the reading and writing isn't the hard part ( it can be kinda hard sometimes but ya know) the real challenge is in conversing with Japanese people....they just talk so fast and

I feel retarded cause I have to sit there and break down what they just said in my head and then formulate a coherent response...so talking about regular stuff takes foeva...but its all good ;D

[shadedscript]

i learned hiragana before katakana cuz i figured i should learn the harder one first. anyways, thx for this vid 'twas a good review 4 me :)

[NodnarbRS]

how is it harder its exactly the same thing???

[shadedscript]

@NodnarbRS no its not the exact same thing, similar yes, but not the same. once i learned hiragana it was easier for me to remember katakana.

[NodnarbRS]

I'm saying there is no difference in their pronunciation... i know they are physically different ;D

[Malediciton]

hard hard hard

5 sstars

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Thanks for the 5!

It does get easier with practice.. eventually :-)

[pachil92]

Hiragana and Katakana are both pretty easy to memorize, it's kanji that get's me, they are so hard to remember

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Me too!!

Was going to do a kanji video but it would be a 50 hour video :-)

Maybe I will !!

[Kouseichan03]

You should do it. xD I know a few, but I think it would be nice do learn more. I got 21 （；へ：）wrong in this video, I'm having the same problem you did. I should really make flash cards to help.

[DKI94]

ur videos are awesome

[superleggera123]

first

and awesome video bro

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Thanks dude!

Did you get 100%?

:-D

[superleggera123]

@TheJapanChannelDcom yes i did bro

very well done..

better than rosetta stone

[TheJapanChannelDcom]

Awesome brother!

Better than me! I made a few mistakes when I was checking it after I made it :-)

Yes, I find this flash card style works best for me too :-)