So, you want to learn Japanese, eh? Very well; it's a pretty tough language but if you stay current with these lessons you're be reading and speaking like a pro in no time!

Lesson 1 - Reading Katakana

Katakana will be very useful when learning your pronunciation of Japanese; it'll also let you read a lot of Japanese you find, though some of that will be hiragana, which we'll learn next. Anyway, there are a few sets of katakana characters. Today, we'll be focusing on the first set - vowel sounds. It's pretty much just as easy as it sounds! Here are the characters and their translations:

あ a

い i

う u

え e

お o

I recommend making some flash cards or something and memorizing those; katakana will be the basis for the whole language. Once you think you've got those down, go try and find some Japanese websites or menus or signs or something, and see if you can recognize the characters.

Alright, ready for the next set? Here are the rest of the katakana characters; take them one line at a time, memorize them, and then review them with the ones you'd already learned. It shouldn't take more than a few hours to finally get them all down.

か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko
さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so
た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と to
な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no
は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho
ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo
や ya		ゆ yu		よ yo
ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro
わ wa				を wo
ん n

Notice how they're spaced a certain way? That's because the initial sound and the final sound line up to make this chart easy to memorize. Convienent, huh?

If this seems like a lot to memorize, take a break after every line. When you come back, review what you've learned so far, and then start on the next line. Good luck!

Once you have these down, congratulations, you can now read (a lot of) Japanese! Next lesson, we'll learn hiragana. Then, we'll modified and compound kana. After that, it's finally time to start with some basic vocabulary! Have fun!