Learning Japanese Hiragana and Katakana: Workbook and Practice Sheets 2nd Edition, Kindle Edition

The best part of this book is that it breaks learning the Hiragana and Katana up into manageable sections, so you don't need to take on too much. After each section of symbols you learn several words that utilize the characters that you've learned up to that point, so you're learning more quickly how to combine what you've learned.Pros: - Stroke order for each character. - Detailed information on pronunciation and origin information for each character - Cumulative word formulation, so you learn new words as you go. - Review practice after each set of characters. - Includes both Hiragana and Katana characters - Quizzes/ReviewsCons: - No flash cards. Of course you can make your own, but if this book added perforated flashcards, it would be absolutely the best all around workbook with ZERO flaws! If you do want to get a workbook that includes flash cards, these are highly recommended:Kodansha's Hiragana Workbook:https://www.amazon.com/Kodanshas-Hiragana-Workbook-Step-Step/dp/1568364415/Kodansha's Katakana Workbook:https://www.amazon.com/Kodanshas-Katakana-Workbook-Step-Step/dp/1568364776/Those are inexpensive ways to get a workbook that includes the flashcards you can easily pop out, but the workbook portion itself isn't as detailed/helpful as this one in my opinion. Together these 3 resources are really great!

Really helped me drill these characters into my brain so that I can actually begin learning Japanese. In conjunction with this I used a free app called Kana Drill which was also helpful. I completed all the exercises in about one week, spending maybe two-three hours each evening on Kana study. Now I just have to master crazy grammar and 2,000 or so Kanji—no big deal!

It pains me to give only 3 stars to this excellent workbook, but it's just so difficult to write in. I love the way it's laid out, hiragana first, a few characters at a time, reinforced by practice blanks and drills at the end of each brief lesson. The quizzes have you writing out actual words with the characters you've learned, which is super useful for a beginner, and also helps build vocabulary. There are ample drills and quizzes at the end of the book, and I couldn't be happier with the content and how quickly it's helped me learn. But I hope the authors are reading this:The binding is a big problem. It's a thin-spined book and it won't lie flat, as hard as I did try to break the spine, and that means that half of the practice squares have no support when you write on them. That makes the already difficult task of writing brand-new characters much harder. Everything comes out kinda shaky. Ultimately I took matters into my own hands and found my own practice sheets; there were good free practice templates at Maiko Japan and I downloaded some free blank sheets with grids at Human Japanese. I suppose you could also just photocopy a bunch of the book's pages for practice, too. But if you pay for a workbook, you shouldn't have to print practice sheets of your own.Mr Henshall and Mr Takagaki, please consider using a spiral binding for future editions of this book, or coming up with another solution so that your truly excellent and well-thought-out materials can be used to their best advantage.

I am currently in school for Technical Japanese (科学技術日本語). The focus is on reading comprehension and translation of Technical Japanese documents such as patents, technical journals and technical drawings. The first step was to learn the two Kana Syllabaries, hiragana and katakana. For me I find application is the most effective means by which I can learn. This provided a means of application by providing a structured course to learn and write the Kana. With this work book along and the instruction I was provided, I quickly picked up the two Kana Syllabaries. I would recommend this work book to anyone wanting to learn the Japanese Syllabaries.

I am so excited to start using this. Just flipping through it, it's JUST what I wanted. Highly recommended for someone wanting to learn and practice!

Absolutely love this book! Here is why:1). They add practice words for each set of hiragana and katakana you learn. This is very helpful for getting used to the way it is written and read.2). They include free audio with a link that can be found in the book! Super helpful for people to use3). They include many examples and explanations.4). Lots of writing space for each letter!5). They include Dakuten ! This is super important when it comes to pronunciation and reading.My only suggestion is to practice both the hiragana and katakana sets at once. They have a chapter for hiragana and one for katakana, and they separate them into small sections, like the first two columns, the vowels and k line. I find it best to learn the same hiragana and katakana lines at once. For example, I find it best to learn the hiragana vowels and katakana vowels at once. However, either way you chose will work with practice!I also think it’s important to realize you won’t become fluent with this one book! I recently started kanji, and it is a completely different matter, and it will take a while to become fluent, however, this will definitely help you become able to sound out words and help you learn how to begin writing!This book alone won’t completely teach someone hiragana and katakana, active recall and repetition are very important to memorize the writing system, and kanji will take a while to learn, but this is a very helpful resource, and I 100 percent recommend this!

This is an extremely useful text for anyone learning Japanese. Plenty of practice opportunities and you can gradually build your word and Hiragana/Katakana vocabulary. However, some of the calligraphy for the characters is not always that of common usage in today's Japan i.e. the characters come from calligraphy rather than everyday written usage. Even so this is an excellent text.

Great book, so far mastered only Hiragana but the book itself is easy to use, has a lot of space in the book itself for you to practise kana and has free audio lessons on the web page of tuttle. Good luck to all people learning out there :)

The best book to learn hiragana and katakana if you are learning on your own. Very easy to understand and gives you motivation to finish it.

Great learning tool

Perfect for learning the 2 basic Japanese writing systems