Hiragana and Katakana tips for Beginners
A little snapshot of my own hiragana and katakana characters.
Many beginners encounter problems while learning Japanese writing systems: hiragana and katakana. I decided to take a look at the most common, in my opinion, mistakes made by learners.
Remember, the stroke order isn’t there to make your life harder (although it does most of the time). It is really important to write the characters the certain way as any other way makes them look slightly or completely different.
Before I begin I would like to explain the particular way I write き・さ・ふ・そ.
There are, as far as I know, two different ways to write a character. The way I write them is more of a caligraphic approach (the second line). Mostly, learners tend to choose the first approach.
I switched the way to write this characters as ふ is faster to write (three strokes instead of four). そ・さ・き plainly look better to me.
Getting to the gist of the post now - common mistakes made by beginners.
Even though hiragana is more complicated (more strokes and more curvy ones), the characters are fairly more distinguishable. Learners might however make mistakes by mirroring the characters (き・ち・さ・く are the trickiest ones among them).
2. Confusing hiragana り and katakana リ
The hiragana ri り is shown at the left side. The first stroke should go down and then a little up (shown at the bottom). Because of this ri り could be written in hiragana as the 2nd and 3rd example on the left side show.
The katakana ri リ however doesn’t have a pointed end in the first stroke (as shown on the right).
While writing a word in hiragana or katakana, you must make sure you write the correct ‘ri’. You musn’t write a word in one system and the throw a character from the other system!
e.g. Writing リんご ( リんご ) instead of りんご
3. Mixing up similar characters
I think this mistake applies more to katakana. The most common mistake is writting shi シ insted of tsu ツ and n ン instead of so ソ.
You should start by writing the small line first. Then the longer one. The longer line in so ソ should be pointing high, while the one in ン should be lower.
Many Japanese people tend to make n ン really flat and so ソ higher (like me in the first picture).
Notice that the longer line is written from different sides!
Confusing shi シ and tsu ツ
The same goes for this characters. Shi シ is n ン with two small lines, while tsuツ is so ソ with two small lines.
Confusing ko コ (the first one) and ユ (the second one)
Ko コ and yu ユ have similar writing patterns. The last stroke in yu ユ should be long and going past the first one.
Confusing ku ク(the first one) and ke ケ (the second one)
Ku ク consists of two strokes, while ke ケ of three. The first and second line in ke ケ aren’t connected with their ends. The same goes for the second and third line.
Confusing wa わ and re れ (and ne ね)
Easily mistaken characters in hiragana.
From left to right: ne, re, wa
Plainly, wa わ should have a round stroke (like a belly) and re れ a little pointed end (like a leg). Ne ね has a little circle inside.
Notice that all three of them consist only of two strokes!
4. Ro ロ and its stroke order
Ro ロ has the same stroke order as the kanji for mouth 口. Don’t write it like a plain square. It has three strokes, not four! It looks different than normal when written using four or even two strokes.
Notice that the kanji looks bigger than ro ロ in normal digital font.
Hope I cleared up some things for you. If you have some questions regarding Japanese writing feel free to ask me!
