Japanese

Japanese has three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. You may see all three in a Japanese text. While hiragana (with its rounded shapes) and katakana (with its sharper lines) may be used to represent sounds, kanji (Chinese characters) can represent both sounds and meaning.

Hiragana

The hiragana are the basic syllables of the Japanese language and have to be memorized. While it may feel daunting at first, memorization is part of learning. We all learn the alphabets of our mother tongues. Multiplication tables are a staple of arithmetic education and are presented as tables to memorize, rather than understand. Now, if you’re a child that has internalized how multiplication works, you may be able to derive multiplication tables from first principles. The difference in this case, is that we have to memorize shapes. While there are techniques we can employ to aid memory, I go with a self-directed methodology. Meaning, I have no basis for my method besides my intuition.

The hiragana table, as it is often presented to Western speakers, is symmetrical and divided in sections. Besides the five vowels, all syllables of hiragana and katakana are combinations of pairings of a vowel and a consonant.

My memorization technique works like this: I pick up to three characters at the time, look at them, and write them down. Every time I finish writing a character, I repeat its pronunciation. I also draw the shape in my mind a few times. That looks exactly as it sounds like. I stare into the distance, or close my eyes, and trace the strokes with my mind’s eye to fix the shape into my subconscious.

The idea here is that I want to form a three-senses association using sight, touch, and hearing. Repeating this trifecta over an over again creates an associative conditioning loop that fixes memory. Working memory has a set biological limit that varies across individuals. Choosing three characters at the time seems optimal to me. It doesn’t approach the human limit too closely, and it leaves space for other thoughts. Learning deteriorates when the mind is clogged up.

I don’t cram information either. A “practice” session as described above might take anything from three to five minutes. This means that I can interrupt my day at any time and practice by checking if I can recall multiples of three characters at the time. I strongly believe that this process can’t be rushed. I give myself ample time (a few hours) between practice sessions to allow the associations to form. I don’t have a set target of characters that I try to memorize per day as that would add pressure. And pressure invalidates learning, in my experience.

So, “How do I know that I learned the material?” Here is where intuition comes in. The way I test myself is by thinking about the romaji syllable whose Japanese character I want to recall and see how quickly the image of the character comes to me. The longer the lag, the weaker the association. This is how I identify which associations are not fully formed and need more repetition. Testing is also an impromptu activity. It can be done at any given time during the day.

To be clear with what I mean by any given time during the day, I mean that practicing and testing can happen while you wait for a bus, brush your teeth, cook food, watch TV, or take a walk. I don’t approach studying the way we are encouraged to do in school. I find it easier to integrate the things that I’m learning about in my daily life.

Because Japanese syllables have consistent phonemes, I concluded that it would be smoother to structure my learning by focusing on a single vowel at the time and learn the phonemes associated with that vowel. For example, I started on the vowel a (あ), then moved on to ka (か) then na (な), and so on. I then switched to the vowel i (い) and followed the same process. It seemed logical to me to proceed this way as the pattern become more consistently uniform. Our brains have an affinity for patterns, we look for them and even seem them where they don’t exist (ever sent a text only to realize there were words missing you swore you read before sending it?).