Memorizing Hiragana help!!!!!

[Dark LeeLee Doll]

Ok so my Japaneses is poor..it more of a bad mix of English and Japanese... and half the time i write stuff out its in romanji

So anyway....my dad says there ways to memorize hiragana...and eventual katakana...like nursery rhymes and stuff they kinda teach you as a todler...

bummer is he has no time..and my course work is curently hiragana heavy..... so i am running out of time...

does anyone know any neat ways to memorize this stuff?

i can write the characters in my name, but after that i always mess up or confuse the rest.... and end up looking stuff up instead

any suggestions??

[PAnZuRiEL]

Make flash cards. Go through them in small groups, adding new ones every so often, until you recognise every character by sight. Practice writing the ones you memorise.

Learning them by rote is really the only method there is.

[Dark LeeLee Doll]

yeah i have those..plus it is pasted on my mirror in the morning... sweatdrop

thanks for the advice biggrin

[Universe full of Stars]

The Little work books. and Manga. Definitely Manga

[astral_rock]

Write them.
One by one x1.000 times (Be sure to use the correct stroke order!!!).
Well, you will use whole notebook.. but hey... You'll memorize them in no time.
Good luck. biggrin

[Dark LeeLee Doll]

You wouldnt know any good workbooks by name would you?...the class one is pretty lame.... and fairly generic....though they do demonstrate the stroke order fairly well

and yes manga does help a lot.

Thanks for the advice!!

[astral_rock]

Hmm, don't know if it'll help...
But, this is really great site: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/

[Dark LeeLee Doll]

every little bit helps..thank you 3nodding

[Universe full of Stars]

Dark LeeLee Doll

You wouldnt know any good workbooks by name would you?...the class one is pretty lame.... and fairly generic....though they do demonstrate the stroke order fairly well

and yes manga does help a lot.

Thanks for the advice!!

ha... i'm really not sure, my parents had them and made me learn basic kanji.... i think its from Japan^^;

[Dark LeeLee Doll]

yeah...the good ones are all imports...i am asking a relative to send me my nephews book when hes done sweatdrop

[Phipette]

http://www.chipchat.com/NihonGo/

Online flash cards, basically. Once you know some characters, you can uncheck them so they don't come back up again.

As for writing, you'll just have to write them a gajillion times each. But personally, I find it easier once I know how to read what I just wrote.

[Dark LeeLee Doll]

oh wow thanks.

yeah...guess their is no easy way around it..LOL

[Euphonious Cantabile]

http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/self/site/hiragana/hiragana.html

What I love about this site is that there's an animation that goes with each of the hiragana (no animation for katakana). A friend I knew in Japanese 1A memorized hiragana just by this. For example, for "to", she imagined a toe being stubbed by a thorn, which these hiragana pictures that my Japanese professor borrowed from another Japanese professor showed.

[I Eat Dictionaries]

Flash cards, flash cards, flash cards~
Also, write them out lots. That's a great way 'cause you're learning from a different part of your brains than flash cards... or something. Don't know, my science teacher explained how it works. xD That, and writing it out helps you write them better. :3
I wouldn't really be able to tell you much, maybe some little games or something. :3
I learned by just... looking at a page of the alphabet. So. >_>;;

[Fin_kin]

Writing them over and over again and flashcards seem to be the best way.

If you have Windows Vista, you can add a kana flash-card app to the side-bar thing-ie. That way you can practice the reading as you wait for pages to load.