Let's Learn Hiragana: First Book of Basic Japanese Writing

by Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura

There are three types of Japanese script--katakana, hiragana, and kanji. It is possible to read Japanese knowing only a limited number of kanji, but it is not possible with only a limited number of katakana or hiragana--one must know all of them. Let's Learn Hiragana , and its companion volume Let's Learn Katakana, is a textbook that introduces the learner to the basics of one of these fundamental Japanese scripts. Being a workbook, it contains all the exercises that allow the student to master hiragana by the time the book has been finished. Let's Learn Hiragana is a classic in the field, and the huge number of students that have used it successfully is a sign of its preeminence as a self-study guide.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Reference, Japanese Literature, Japan

72 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 1985

Reviews

[Luru · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple, good book for learning Hiragana. I used it to strengthen my skills while learning in class, and there were many useful tidbits and information in this book.

There are several good exercises in the book which get a little dull and repetitive, but there is no better way to learn Hiragana than repeating them over and over again. There is also a lot of vocabulary if one cares to learn some. A little grammar was surveyed as well, whenever it was important to understand why certain characters are used.

[Arlian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit too traditional for my tastes. I wish this book had the kana practice squares instead of plain old lines. Kana Practice Squares are boxes that are divided into quadrants so you can make sure your strokes are balanced.

However, on the plus side, this book has more info on reading than most kana workbooks. It even explains vertical writing, which is being left out in a lot beginner books nowadays. I do think it was helpful in terms of helping my reading, but less so in helping my very bad penmanship get better.

[Julieanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a big help in understanding the easiest of the three syllabaries that compose written Japanese. It breaks them down into sections so you can practice and then build upon the previous group and there is a page for writing practice that you can scan and print for even more practice. It also works as a good reference in case you are rust on the stroke order, which is more important than western learners would think.

Repitition and mixing up the lessons helps with memorizing what the book teaches.

[Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/12/2020-
I decided to make this book review months later to say this book was a huge help towards learning Japanese. I remember seeing this book years ago, but during that time I was too intimidated by Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji to really Japanese. I'm now in my third month of learning and I hope to continue for years to come.

[Carolyn Strong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good practice book to learn how to recognize and write Hirigana. Book needs to have an answer key to promote better learning.

[Punk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this workbook to learn hiragana in just a few weeks. It teaches you how to write and use hiragana and is almost perfect for beginners, except for a few important details it just decides to leave out.

This teaches hiragana in small batches, giving detailed guides for stroke order, direction, and how to end certain strokes (trailing, abrupt, hooked). It does not mention that some hiragana may look different in print than they do written. Despite this omission, it occasionally uses some of these characters in the exercises. If you're unaware of this custom, it'll seem like they've thrown a secret hiragana at you.

After you practice writing your new hiragana, it gives you a number of different exercises to help you become familiar with their use. As you're introduced to more hiragana, the previous ones are included in the exercises to reinforce what you've already learned. When you run out of new hiragana, it moves on to dakuten, hadakuten, and yōon, and after that it has you writing full sentences in hiragana without a peep about how you're probably never going to do this outside of a hiragana workbook.

The book covers long vowels, including the tricksy long O, but doesn't bother explaining you probably won't have to deal with this much in the real world as these sneaky double Os are usually written as kanji and so for certain words the problem of whether to use a う or an extra お isn't likely to come up.

It's also of the belief that ん is always transliterated as an m before p, b, or m, and teaches it as law, except this is not always the case. My romaji dictionary, for example, doesn't follow this convention, which might make it difficult to look up certain words if you're unaware of this peculiarity.

The exercises don't have an answer key, which frustrated me more than once as I couldn't find some of these words in the dictionary—see above—and even if I could, they were often written with kanji so I couldn't see if I was right with some of the more tricky problems. There is a short review section at the back that provides answers, though, and it's a nice way to gauge how well you've picked up the system.

Because the usage rules are slowly dispensed throughout the lessons and you're not hammered up front with a bunch of information you can't use yet, the book feels very approachable. There just might be some confusion later when things aren't as it said (or didn't say).

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. You'll be writing hiragana in no time. (Whether you remember it or not, that's another story. But that's not the fault of this book.)

[Lauren]

Attempted.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book for beginners. It helped me see the different ways the characters can be written, but the characters are really personalized so don't expect those to be the only versions of them.
Overall, this is a good book to start out with.