[Koji]

Since Japanese lessons are kind of expensive, I haven't taken any, and anyway I'm not used to learning languages the academic way, since I learned English mostly by myself (Spanish is my first language.) But the first hurdle is actually learning to read the script. So eventually I grew tired of not knowing any Japanese and made these hiragana flash cards for myself.

The cards (right-click and choose 'save as,' it's a PDF file.)

The 3x4 cm cards consist of a character on one side and its romanization on the other. You're supposed to draw a random card and guess what's on the other side, until you learn each pair. They only have the basic characters, without the no longer used 'wi' and 'we,' and don't include the corresponding modifications to produce other sounds. You can see what I'm talking about here, and why I don't consider it important.

To build these:

1. Print the file on letter-sized sheets (or bigger,) making sure you choose not to scale (or else the Acrobat will shrink or enlarge and change the size of the cards.)

2. Then you paste either the two hiragana or the two romaji sheets on some manner of thick paper or thin cardboard, preferrably using some spray glue, like Super 77. You should have two of the four sheets pasted onto a thicker material.

3. Cut the four sheets by the framing rectangle. Throw away the excess paper from the border. Now the sheets are of an exact size and can be aligned against each other with no problems.

4. Paste the two corresponding pairs of sheets against each other, checking that the romaji is directly against their hiragana equivalent (this is why the hiragana sheets have little romaji on top of each card.) Make sure that the sheets are properly aligned to each other.

5. Let it dry for a few minutes and start cutting. Use, preferrably, a metal ruler, and an x-acto knife. Cut carefully by the guide lines (and on a safe surface.) Don't cut in between cards or out of the sheet. This is so that your sheet doesn't become a mess of little cut-out squares.

You should have your cards when you're done with that. I hope they turn out to be somewhat useful.

I'll also make katakana cards when I'm through learning hiragana. These cards I made for myself last friday and right now I'm only having trouble with about ten characters, so I'd say they were very helpful. I learned them first by grouping them according to their vowel, and later all together.

To the typographically inclined, I'd appreciate comments on my choice for the hiragana. I used MS Gothic, but since I can't read Japanese I also know nothing about proper Japanese typography. I did choose a dry font so that I could focus on the direction of the strokes rather than on their thickness or whatever, but I'm still mostly clueless.

[dmauro]

There are websites that make learning kana extremely easy and paperless. Just do a quick google search.
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[Koji]

'Paperless' and 'websites' are, more often than not, lame excuses at serious learning!

[Adilegian]

[dmauro]

[Adilegian]