Lessons
Lesson catalogue
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Start Here: Sounds, Script, and Sentence Order
Meet the three scripts, the sound-based nature of kana, and the basic Japanese sentence pattern used in beginner reading.
- • Recognize the roles of hiragana, katakana, and kanji in a beginner sentence.
- • Expect the main verb or predicate near the end of the line.
Hiragana I: あ to こ
Learn the five vowel kana and the か row so you can start sounding out short hiragana words.
- • Read the five vowel kana smoothly.
- • Read the か row smoothly and connect each shape to its sound.
Hiragana II: さ to と
Add the さ and た rows and get comfortable with the important sounds し, ち, and つ.
- • Read the さ row and the た row smoothly.
- • Recognize し, ち, and つ without stopping to translate them into romaji one by one.
Hiragana III: な to ん
Finish the basic hiragana chart and learn how to read the special kana ん in short words.
- • Read the remaining basic hiragana rows with more confidence.
- • Recognize that やゆよ is a shortened row and that ん stands alone as a special sound.
Hiragana Extras: Dakuten, Handakuten, Small Kana
Learn voiced sounds, p-sounds, contracted sounds, and the small っ so you can read more common everyday words.
- • Read voiced kana made with dakuten such as が and ぎ.
- • Read p-sounds made with handakuten such as ぱ and ぴ.
Katakana I: Core Symbols
Begin katakana by learning the core symbols and sounding out short everyday loanwords.
- • Recognize katakana as a separate sound-based script.
- • Read the vowel row and k-row without switching back to romanization.
Katakana II: Loanwords and Long Vowels
Build katakana fluency with the long vowel mark ー and common everyday loanwords.
- • Notice how ー stretches the vowel sound before it.
- • Read familiar katakana words with long vowels more smoothly.
Reading Particles and Word Boundaries
Use particles to find word boundaries and read short beginner sentences in chunks.
- • Recognize the most common beginner particles quickly.
- • Break a line into phrases instead of reading one character at a time.
です: Simple Statements
Learn how です ends a polite statement and ties short beginner sentences together.
- • Recognize です as the polite sentence ending in basic statements.
- • Read X is Y patterns without reordering too early.