Hi, I'm kinda new in learning Japanese!

Hi! My name is Aaron, and I’m new to learning Japanese! I memorize all the hiragana letters, but not yet katakana. I have problem with katakana though, shi, tsu, so, and n have almost identical picture. I memorized hiragana, but I’m not very fast reader. And have trouble memorizing katakana as well. If you have tips in memorizing katakana faster, that would be helpful.

Anyway thanks for reading! I am on my way to becoming a Japanese reader hopefully!

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Hi, welcome!

I found this guide on Tofugu useful, if you haven’t found it yet.

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well ン and ソ are look different because of the slope of the ノ. Just remember So is like a softball bat, so you raise it higher.

ツ and シ are the same way. Just remember that the ノ for ツ has tsu times the slope as the ノ for シ. Thats how I remember em.

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huh, I never noticed the slope of the long line was different, I always focus on the slope of the dashes - same thing there, you can see a difference in slope :slight_smile:

Yeah. for ツ and ソ you start from the top down and give it a steeper drop. Just the first thing I noticed, but the dashes thing work too.

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Hey! I’m relatively new myself, and just got serious about Katakana like… yesterday, I’d been mostly ignoring it.

I second that you definitely want to work through the Tofugu guide that @LawlietBlack linked . It’ll get you all set up from start to finish. I started using an SRS flashcard app to keep it in my brain for the next week or so to cement it.

For the similar letters you mentioned, like ツ and ソ, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading through this: https://www.thejapanguy.com/learning-katakana-heres-a-cool-trick/

I started nodding my head while studying using the “vertical” or “horizontal” trick in the article above, it made real sense.

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We’ve all been there, don’t worry! When I first learned katakana I thought it was impossible to tell the difference between シ and ツ in certain fonts, but with enough practice, you’ll get there!

My number one tip for memorising kana (and actually just about everything) is simple: Practice. The more you practice, the better you’ll get, so practice your socks off!

(then put your socks back on, we don’t want your smelly feet around)

Just keep working, and eventually you’ll get there! Katakana was harder than hiragana for me as well. As long as you practice and don’t give up, you’ll be a reader in no time!

Just remember, we all used to confuse “b” and “d”, and now, we bon’t!

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