I think it’s common among Japanese learners a difficulty regarding reading katakana. I think it’s the small exposure we have of them. Almost all WK content, for example, is in hiragana, so when I’m using WK I’m improving my hiragana skill as well, and I’m noticing it! I can read hiragana a LOT faster than 2 months ago (there is still room for improvement, but I’m quite happy with the level I’m achieved). But katakana is a whole other story, I read it as slow as a turtle and I don’t know how to improve it… like, I tried using apps for learning katakana, but in the end of the day they are 1) really boring and repetitive and 2) they are only useful for learning to read the characters, not to improve reading full words - at least the apps I downloaded.
So that’s why I created this little post, anyone has any tips for improving katakana reading in a natural way? Like I said, hiragana improved “naturally” because I’m always exposed to it in my daily Japanese study, but words written in katakana are so sparse… I really wanted that somebody made a script that switched WK to katakana just for the sake of training it!
The natural way is just reading a lot…sorry to burst your bubble there…
I feel you though. I remember how much of a pain katakana was at first. The more you read though, the more it starts to be easy and natural. I still make a mistake now and again though so I should probably read more too…
I think the trick is just with reading a bunch of katakana words. Or better yet, learning a bunch of katakana words For that I recommend Kitsun and going to the Community decks’ section to start learning the 4500 katakana words’ deck available there.
Yes, I know is by reading, but the trouble is that, even reading, they are sparse! I’m not yet ready to read a book… but maybe if WK were in katakana I would be reading it frequently.
Dude, you fully solved my problem! Two problems by the way, I was also worried that I was not learning katakana words, now I will improve my katakana reading skills and learn katakana vocab, hurray!
I know it’s asking too much, but WK could add katakana vocab to the levels…it really feels that’s is a major thing that’s missing here.
The second one - “katakana madness” displays and queries the on’yomi readings of kanji in katakana. It doesn’t turn everything into katakana, but it’s better than nothing.
Btw, if you’re using Genki, there’s also a deck for Genki vocab that will definitely help you stay ahead while you’re studying the grammar. Any questions about Kitsun, ask on Kitsun’s thread. The creator is always ready to help.
