Lesson 2: Writting Characters

Once you know how the language sounds (have you tried pronouncing a few phrases?), start learning hiragana (it's the general purpose kana). I did this by drawing out a chart like so (you might need to download a language pack to read this):

　あいうえお

　かきくけこ

　さしすせそ

　たちつてと

んなにぬねの

　はひふへほ

　まみむめも

　や　ゆ　よ

　らりるれろ

　わ　　　 を

A few things to take note of: I place ん in front of the n row to avoid that annoying habit of making another row that doesn't correspond to the rest of the chart, I don't include secondary and tritenary pronounciations (g, z, j, d, b, p), ?y? combinations or the archaic wi (ゐ) and we(ゑ). Most of these will be shown later with usage and euponics.

Once you get this chart right without cheating, start drawing out katakana as well. You could also try flashcards, but remember that recognizing and recalling are two different things.

Here's a chart I made for kana earlier this year, a, i, u, e, o and n are replaced by their kana, but I'm sure it's easy enough to understand.