Introduction
紹介
Shōkai
A big part of learning a new language involves a lot of memorization, and this couldn't be more true with the Japanese language — which utilizes 3 different "alphabets" — Hiragana and Katakana (which both consist of 46 characters each) and Kanji (a system borrowed from the Chinese, containing over an estimated 40,000 characters! Luckily for you, only about 2,000 Kanji are commonly used today). Our goal is to help you remember.
At first, learning Japanese will seem like small, baby steps. But think of each of these small steps as tiny accomplishments toward an even bigger goal — which is to understand Japanese with ease! The great thing about the Japanese language is that the further and further you progress, the easier it becomes to grasp. After you memorize the Hiragana and Katakana characters, the next step is to start putting basic sentences together by learning Japanese grammar (which actually may turn out to be a lot easier than you think). Then after you have some basics down, you'll start to learn some Kanji symbols. Kanji will most likely be the most daunting part of learning Japanese, but once you understand a couple rules and tendencies as to how Kanji is written and read, things start to get a little easier from then on.
Before you know it, Japanese will start making sense to you — instead of looking like a bunch of random characters strung together or sounding like a confusing mix of spoken syllables!
You can do it, and once you actually start and stick with it, you'll wish you had started way sooner! Hang in there! がんばって！ Ganbatte!
Ready to learn? Let's begin!