Everyone Loves Kana... (Japanese for Young People: Kana Workbook Bk.1)

Member Name: shroud

Product:	Japanese for Young People: Kana Workbook Bk.1
Date:	17/05/09 (65 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: solid foundation into kana with plenty of practice reading, speaking, and using the syllabury

Disadvantages: best used before the student text book this goes with

Part of learning any foreign language should ideally mean learning to read and write that language as well as the spoken word. For our chosen language this means we have to master not one, but three writing scripts. The how and why of this is not only interesting, but helps provide a more solid understanding of how the writing system works together.

Before the 4th century AD, interestingly enough, Japan did not have a way to write their language down. Instead, scholars began importing the Chinese pictorial writing system, or kanji, and using the symbols to refer to their own words. Over time, simplified forms of this came to be derived and formed the syllabary writing scripts known as kana and representing the basic sounds of spoken Japanese in much the same way as our alphabet does. One, hiragana, is used in ordinary Japanese for word endings and to write out words whose kanji is obscure or obsolete, as well as adjectives and adverbs. It is also the script of choice used in materials written for children, including textbooks, manga (comics), and above kanji to demonstrate pronunciation and meaning for kanji not included in the government's official Joyo kanji list (this is the kanji every Japanese person must learn at school).

The second kana script, katakana, represents the same phonetic sounds as hiragana, but serves a separate function. Katakana is used to emphasise a word, being the equivalent of us writing in bold or using all caps, and for foreign words of non Chinese origin. Visitors to Hokkaido may also encounter it in written form for Ainu, which is a language spoken by the local remnants of the original peoples of Japan, before the ancestors of those we know as the modern Japanese arrived on the islands and settled. Foreign names are always written in katakana as well, so if you are wanting an authentic tattoo of your name in Japanese and want it to actually be your name and not a Japanese name that means the same thing as the meaning of your actual name, then you would have it done in katakana. Indeed, foreigners visiting Japan are legally only allowed to write their name in katakana, though they may legally choose a Japanese name as an alias to go by, and that may written in kanji.

So, in order to read and write in Japanese, one must know hiragana and katakana and it is the usual practice to learn these first, just as Japanese children do. This workbook is an aid to do just that. While it is made to accompany the Japanese for Young people student text book, it is actually more effective to master the kana script before beginning that text. Previously, I reviewed "Let's Learn Hiragana", and wrote at length about the lack of writing practice and such. This book has this covered, and in a much more entertaining fashion. Altogether, there are 25 lessons. The first 15 lessons cover hiragana, and the second lot of ten cover katakana. This may seem very short to you, but kana is extremely simple to master. The hard part is not the memorising of the symbols, but of the writing and proper use of them at will. Let's take a look at how this workbook takes this issue in hand.

Part 1- Hiragana

Each lesson in this section contains six parts. In the first part, we are introduced to a small group of hiragana characters. It is easy to know in advance which ones they are, as they make up that lessons title. The second part of the lesson is finding the matching hiragana. We get a symbol followed by various other hiragana characters all mixed up and must circle the ones that are the same as the example. This section has the optional tape symbol we encounter in the student text book that accompanies this, but it is indeed optional. The idea for this is that either the instructor (or student if doing self study) or the audio tape can be used to articulate the phonetic sound this represents. Now, this may make the very expensive (and often difficult to obtain) cassette tape set seem a must have, but this is not so. Econtrader.com's Japanese lessons includes a kana section, and one can actually use this to learn the sounds to the hiragana in each of the workbook's lesson, and then say the sound aloud as doing the exercise. It is free to do it this way, and makes your brain think a little more too.

The second part of the lesson involves reading. The hiragana covered in the first part of the lesson is now combined into very simple words with pictures to show what they mean. Reading the sounds aloud together (and without any stresses on any part of the word), gives us practice reading elementary level vocabulary. If unsure of how to pronounce them together, again, this is so basic, they are on Econtrader. This is a very short section, with only a half dozen examples to practice, so one comes away feeling flush with success and not like one has tried to scale Mt Fuji in winter. Seeing as this is aimed at young people, this is ideal, especially for the younger set, as they come away able to swagger that they can read and spell some real Japanese words. For us grown ups who have been out of school for awhile, it means we can learn without our brain turning to mush and knowing we actually accomplished something real, and therefore able to feel smug while making the tea after.

The next section covers writing. This is where we learn the correct stroke order for writing the symbols, and again, this is made so painless one wonders what they were so worried about. We get a page divided into writing squares, just as the actual Japanese writing paper known as genkoyoushi is. The squares on this type of paper actually serve a function, and that is to allow one to distinguish where one character begins and ends, as little hash marks can make all the difference in the world. In this case, the first square gives us the character. The second gives us a dotted line version of the first stroke to trace, as well as a nearly transparent graph marking to show the correct placement within that square. The second square gives us the first and second stroke in the same manner, until we have traced an entire character. It is at this point that we get a nearly empty square with a single dot as a starting reference point to write it again without tracing, then another entire character to trace before we once again write the character on its own without any stroke order or placement aids.

Not to worry though, this is not the only time we practice our writing skills. You see, the fifth section is more writing. This time it is a combo of writing and reading, with those super duper easy vocabulary words we learned in section two making reappearance. This time we write them out in the squares, and match the pictures to the words. It is all rather like those very simple worksheets we all had in reception year when we learned our ABC's and had fun with phonics! Indeed, the sixth and least section ties into this by giving us fun puzzles to reinforce these reading and writing skills. We get lots of edutainment with mazes, dot to dots, anagrams and simple word searches and the like. Indeed, the dot to dot and mazes are also deceptively educational in that they sneakily impart our grey matter with the "alphabetical" order of the syllables, a vital skill one must learn in order to use Japanese-English dictionaries.

Part two- katakana

This is the part that frustrates many students of Japanese. Having learned the hiragana, suddenly one has to learn the katakana too, and the katakana phonetics are exactly the same as the hiragana. No surprise then that time is spent learning which katakana is the same sound as what hiragana. That is, we learn that a (ah) in hiragana is such a symbol, and in katakana it is written this other way. That is, they are equivalent to each other, and just the usage is different. Don't smack your head on the table yet, though. We get to view the hiragana equivalents and associate them with one another during various simple exercises, followed by the same sort of writing and reading practice we got for hiragana. Then we get the fun and games again. It is well thought out in that the vocabulary words in this section are actual words that would be normally written in this script: names of foreign countries and imported words of non Japanese or Chinese origin, such as the words for hamburger, ice cream, and so on. Again, sneakily giving us what we need to know, in useful context, and without any heavy explanations about grammar or rules.

Going to the text book

Once this workbook is completed, moving on to the student book is made so much easier. It makes the vocabulary so much more naturally accessible and one does not feel so frightened when the Romanized Japanese suddenly disappears after lesson five. In addition, the confidence building this inspires will offer a can do attitude that makes the formal language lessons something to really look forward to. It has my kids saying, "What are we learning today," and "Hey, can we have another lesson?"

More practice

This is the ideal springboard for learning kana, showing that once again the Association for Japanese Language Teaching used their grant money well to produce something truly useful. But, practice makes perfect and this is where workbooks such as "Let's Learn Hiragana" really come into their own and shine. Not to mention those little quizzes on sites such as Econtrader come in handy for putting our newly learned kana into practice! Even more practice can be gotten by visiting sites written for children, so that they are in kana, such as Kid's Web Japan. You can view the Japanese language version by a simple selection on the home page. Additionally, one can bone up on their newly found reading skills and expand their vocabulary by reading kodomo manga (children's manga) in the original Japanese, keeping a good dictionary to the side of course for when you get stuck!

So, would I recommend this? Yes, whole heartedly. Completing this workbook and then going through the student text book will offer a solid foundation in nihongo (Japanese). Admittedly, it is all very basic, but it lays the foundation one needs to go on to learning kanji, which is covered from the second student text book and work book. Knowing one's kana means that when they encounter unfamiliar kanji, the kana script (or furigana as it is called when thus used), will provide the answer to what it says. This makes it invaluable, and thus, this workbook is well worth every penny. Not only that, but knowing the kana means that when ready, you can even type in Japanese, as keyboards and mobiles use kana to write, then convert it to the kanji for you. Yippee!

Summary: The most entertaining and thorough kana learning system I have yet encountered