caryoscelus:~#

The 46 characters sure look scary to memorize all at once (ha-ha, if that is scary, how do you expect to even touch kanji?) and then you also need to learn a few additional diacritics and digraphs. Naturally, a memo system いる. So lets construct one that suits myself. I’ll omit the pronunciation and spelling details that you can find in any learning material or wikipedia and focus on memorization of characters.

Note that this is a reading guide, not writing one. It will not explain you how to remember how you should scribble, only how to decipher what you see. And even then, you’d probably be better off with installing input method and training yourself to remember what you see.

The N

ん[n] is one of the easiest to remember because it’s so unique. It also can be thought as drunkenly scribbled “n” (though it sure looks more like “h”, but luckily there’s no standalone “h” letter in kana). Note, however, that it may be pronounced closer to “m” depending on context. 乾杯。

The question

Next easy pair is し[shi] and つ[tsu]. Can be memorized via 質 kanji (appears in 質問 [shitsumon], which means question). You don’t have to memorize it via kanji per se if (like me) you don’t know them. Just have しつもん [shitsumon] sequence in mind. One way to remember the correct order is that しつ [shitsu] is bounding empty space, unlike the reverse ordering.

Ku!

く [ku] is another easy one. Later on we’ll pair it with another letter, but for now i suggest you can memorize it by virtue of it looking like K without vertical line. I know, that doesn’t give any clue at how to distinguish it from other k-syllables. Well, you can think of something, right?

For example, 括る [くくる] apparently means “to enclose”. If you happen to know that, it might be helpful.

Hand in hand

Two more characters that shouldn’t necessarily be grouped, but might as well be. て[te] is so easy to remember since it is so similar to “t”/”T” (it is especially easy with russian or spanish Ts, whose names are literally pronounced as [te], unlike english [ti]).

But i’ve combined it with another t-syllable: と[to]. Why? Because they are two “easy” t-syllables (except for aforementioned つ [tsu] which is ts-syllable) and also because they can be memorized with 手と手 (てとて) [te to te] memo. It means hand-and-hand (literally) or something like “hand in hand” (more literary).

(I just looked up 手と手繋いで [てとてつないで] and indeed it’s a legit phrase occurring in the wild)

Finally, no

It’s kinda of strange to delay the character that i (as well as many others) had learned the first for so long: の [no]. Really, it’s used so often and in places where it can be easily distinguished that you should probably memorize it first.

But since the point of this article is to help remembering all of the characters, we’ll have to also deal with の’s more wicked relatives.

First, め[me]. Even though it doesn’t sound very similar, it’s written quite similarly. And then, the wicked form of め[me] is ぬ[nu]!

Finally, the standalone “o” and “a” are also similar: お[o], あ[a]. Aren’t they just like の and め with some weird lines stuck to them on top?

So, how to memorize all of this frightful garden?

It really depends on what do you already know. 雨 [あめ = ame] is rain for example. 布 [ぬの = nuno] is cloth. So you might try to remember お雨布 [おあめぬの] if it would give you any clue as to what is where.

Or you can remember あおのぬめぬめ [ao no nume-nume], which is roughly “blue’s sliminess” if you substitute あお with 青 [blue] and take ぬめぬめ as noun.

Oh well, that took quite a lot of space to talk about these and i can’t even give an ascertain advice.

Up!

Since i just mentioned two of standalone vowels, i might as well mention another two: う[u] and え[e]. They are similar in that both have some character and a horizontal line on top of it. Furthermore, 上 (up) is pronounced as うえ [ue]! Easy, right?

It’s magic

Magic is written as 魔法 or まほう [mahou]. If you omit that final [u] which is for lengthening of previous syllable, you get two similarly-looking characters and no way to distinguish between them. Well, one way is just to remember that simpler character comes the first.

Yo, flowers!

よう、花！ Romaji: [you, hana]. Kana: よう、はな. Now, we get that annoying う again! But if you ignore it, you get three terrifyingly similar characters: よ[yo], は[ha], な[na]. Again, the ordering is key to remembering: first character is the purest, next has vertical line added to it, and the last has a whole t-like crest added!

The more creepy one

Oh well, if we continue like this, we’ll get こにた [ko-ni-ta] which has more creepy readings. I suggest you remember it as is and not look in the dictionary.

In conclusion, here’s a comparative table:

こ[ko]に[ni]た[ta]
よ[yo]は[ha]な[na]
ま[ma]ほ[ho]？[??]

Well, the last character is missing. But i don’t see the pattern to say how it should have been pronounced anyway. Do you?

Love

Of course, japanese love has many names. But here we’re only interested in the more lexicographically confusing 恋. Written in hiragana, it is.. こい [koi]! There are two ways to distinguish between the two.

1. い looks more like i (incidentally, it also looks somewhat like russian и)
2. If you remember the previous section, there were characters with vertical stuff added to こ. If you think about it, there’s enough vertical stuff in い already, so you might be sure no one would be crazy enough to add more.

But if you’re prepared to be more confused, how about “good child”? It would be いい子 [いいこ = iiko]! I’ve no idea how you’re supposed to distinguish between them now..

Small Sachiko

Here goes more confusion. How about ちさいさちこ?! [chi-sa-i sa-chi-ko]

Since you’re supposed to be already familiar with こ and い, this section will deal with さ[sa] and ち[chi]. If the latter looks like 5 to you, i’ve got to disappoint you that there is another character like that, so you have to remember that it’s crossed..

Anyhow, ちさい[chisai] = small and since the important characters are bent inwards, the space between them is small. And the space between characters in さち[sachi] is big. Easy to remember, huh⸮

Fumu-fumu

ふむふむ, i think this only gets more confusing. Well, i suppose kana covered in this section is hard to confuse with anything else (until you start memorizing katakana and kanji, that is). ふ[fu] is also unique for having “f” in it (in place of “h”, but with (han)dakuten it behaves regularly: ぷ and ぶ are just [pu] and [bu]). む[mu], on the other hand, is nothing[無].

Go ahead

先[さき = saki] is another case of word containing two similar hiragana characters. Luckily for us, they are also in the right order (simple ahead, more complex later).

That bastard

うっ！やつ！ [U~! Yatsu!]

A bit confusing, isn’t it? Well, う[u] should be already familiar, as well as つ[tsu]. The “little tsu” (っ, also known as sokuon) is used here to refer to a glottal stop, though usually it’s used to double the next consonant. As for や[ya], it looks like twice struck つ, doesn’t it? このひどいやつら！

A break for one person

一人の人 looks easy, right? How about ひとりのひと[hitori no hito]? You can notice two new kana characters here. ひ[hi] is kinda unique and, though i haven’t come up with any memo for it, it was easy enough. り[ri], on the other hand, looks just like “rj” written together without the dot. And since you know that “rj” makes no sense in japanese, it’s obviously a “ri”.

As you know, the path of thousand 里[り] starts with 一つ[ひとつ] step.

Lock-n-lol

ロック・ン・ロル [rokku-n-roru] is of course katakana, but written in hiragana ろる[roru] is much more fun, even though it doesn’t seem to mean anything.

There you have them, ろ[ro] and ever-so-slightly different る[ru]. Luckily they are are both r-syllables and it’s easy to remember that る[ru] has “u” in it, since there’s a curl just like in ぬ[nu].

We’re cat

But if you thought that curls are limited just to “-u” syllables, i’ll have to disappoint you. われはねこ[ware wa neko] contains three similar characters:

• わ[wa] is the last survived w-syllable (the を[wo] syllable lost its w in pronunciation and the we&wi are totally lost from regular modern japanese)
• れ[re] doesn’t really has anything interesting to offer, i think
• ね[ne] has that confusing curl, but is still pronounced ne.

I’m just confusing you with this, aren’t i?

Irregular particles

As if the rest isn’t confusing enough, ひらがな still has more to offer.

• を[(w)o], formally “wo”, but pronounced as “o”; usually only met as particle
• へ[he] is read as [e] as particle
• は[ha] is read as [wa] as particle

You

ゆ[yu] is also one of the weird-enough looking characters that you probably won’t confuse it with others. If that helps, it also looks somewhat like cyrillic “ю”, which is pronounced pretty much the same.

If

If you still have any doubt about も[mo] (e.g. you might confuse it with ま[ma]), just remember the word もし[moshi], “if”. And if one もし is not enough, you can have two: もしもし, can you hear me?..

So that

そ[so] is distinct enough, but to better remember it, you can remember how it looks in its usual context: それ[sore], その[sono], そんな[sonna].

Same goes for す[su], who is often seen together with る[ru] in する[suru].

The rest

Honestly, i don’t know how to remember the rest. Perhaps, there is no way. You’ll just have to infer their pronunciation from context. Sorry.

• け[ke]
• せ[se]
• か[ka]
• ら[ra]
• み[mi]

Conclusion

Now that i’ve mostly learned 平仮名, i’ll be less likely to be able to help you learning it. As widely known, 「one, who can’t do something, can’t teach it; and one, who can do, won’t be bothered. So the only ones who teach are those who are still in the process of learning」. I hope you won’t take that wisdom too seriously.