New-Languages

Alone among the languages I'm familiar with, Japanese has no less than three separate writing systems.  (Four, if you count romanization.)  Two of these three, hiragana and katakana, are syllabic alphabets and the third, the kanji, is a large collection of Chinese-derived ideograms.

Just from sheer volume, it's a good idea to save the kanji until you've mastered both hiragana and katakana.  For one thing, both of these alphabets have a little over 50 characters each, whereas there are thousands of kanji.  For another, the number of strokes that it takes to write one of the kana is generally fewer than that required to write most kanji, so they serve as a good warm-up.  Finally, the kana were originally derived from kanji (Japan had no writing system at all until the Chinese brought theirs over around the 7th century), so if you learn these you will already know, or at least be somewhat familiar with, a few of the kanji by default.

So this brings us to the next question: which to learn first, hiragana or katakana?

In my experience, every single Japanese teacher out there will start with the hiragana.  And I think this is a big mistake, at least for westerners who speak English, French or any other major European language.  Hiragana is used for native Japanese words, and to inflect verb endings.  If you don't already know the Japanese word you're dealing with, knowing how to read and/or write it in hiragana isn't going to do you a bit of good in terms of comprehension.

Contrast this to katakana, which is mainly used for foreign loan-words that have been absorbed into Japanese.  Most such words currently in use in Japanese come from English, but there are large swaths of the language that come from other European languages (such as medical terminology, which comes from German).  If you already speak that language, you already have the knowledge in your head and having the writing system will allow you to both read and express it.  

For example, if you already speak Italian and learn the katakana, you will be able to go into an Italian restaurant in Japan and read the menu.  You don't need anything else to do this - just the katakana and the knowledge you already have in your head.  The same thing could be said of French and a French restaurant, or English and a pizza delivery menu, and so on.

The advantages aren't just limited to restaurants.  There are plenty of words in daily use all over Japan that come from English and can be found all over.  Words like campaign, sale, wine, cheese, stop, strike, off, tenant, taxi, radio and many many others are all on display, all with meanings that are close enough to the original to be of use to the foreigner.  Far from being hard to find, it would be more or less impossible to be in a city of any size in Japan and not see them.  And with katakana under your belt, you will have at least some idea of what is going on around you.

There is one other reason to learn the katakana first.  Overall, hiragana is more prevalent than katakana in the Japanese language, so it will necessarily receive more reinforcement the more time you spend in Japan.  If you add the "primacy effect" (what is learned first is retained best) to this, after a couple of years you will find that your ability in katakana is noticeably weaker than your ability with hiragana, especially when it comes to writing.  Learn the katakana first, however, and things will be better balanced on down the line.

As I mentioned earlier, most Japanese teachers will insist on teaching you the hiragana first, as that is the universally accepted method in Japan.  So it will be up to you to take some initiative and learn katakana before they can do so!

If you are thinking about studying Japanese, Chris Chardon is the owner of Able Language Services, a successful language school located in Hiroshima, Japan. We have been in business since 1999, teaching all levels of students, many of whom have gone on to rewarding careers using the Japanese language.

A linguistics major in college, Chris himself spent a couple of years in traditional study before realizing that there are better ways. He rapidly became fluent enough to work as a translator/interpreter for a major Japanese company and do business in the language.