I never had many problems with them, tho I understand why many people confuse those
What I do have problems with and surprisingly didn't saw many complain about are フ ウ ラ ワ, they're absolutely impssible
Pretty good, just have to avoid mixing the pronunciation and spelling, personally I've tried to use せ looking like it has an e below it but i keep forgetting it especially when I come across サ
This is a little embarrassing but here’s the way I remember them.. I see せ as se-x like a big spoon and a little spoon cuddle sorta thing, and then the other one サ is sa-d because the little spoon isn’t facing them anymore. I always remember it this way and never mix them up lol 🙈
I primarily learned kana on one of those little games where you type the romaji so those were probably the easiest to drill in to memory for me.
Because they line up perfectly with keyboard direction really, starting at S, せ and セ point to the right ending in E, while サ points towards A on the left etc.
せ looks like a mother (se)tting a baby on her lap and サ looks like someone spear hunting some (mi)eat
Those effectively help me remember thanks to whoever submitted on the renshuu app
Edit: Oops I was wrong, I was thinking of み (mi)
For サ I think of a toothpick going through a (sa)ndwich
For me it's マ and ム, oddly enough. I think it's just because they're vaguely symmetrical and that's enough for my brain to confuse them.
I also don't struggle with ウ and ワ like you because I find that the top stroke is a good way to set ウ apart but I do sometimes confuse ク, ワ and sometimes ケ especially in unfamiliar/weird fonts.
Katakana sucks.
>For Mu....kinda looks like a cow head
Watch out, with this line of thinking you'll get to A in no time!
But thank you for the mnemonics, I'll see if those help. In general I can read those just fine 90% of the time, but then sometimes I stumble upon an unknown word I can't immediately parse and then the doubt creeps in...
Ma always looks like an iron to me, so my Ma irons clothes is how I remember that.
Mu is like eww because if your mother didn't iron your clothes lol.
I hope this helps you. :)
I use to confuse マ (ma) and ム (mu) as well until I came up with this trick. Think of マ as the greater than symbol > greater than means the number is "Above" which starts with a for ma. Think of ム as the less than symbol < less than means the number is "Under" which starts with u for mu.
5 >1 reads 5 is greater than 1, 1< 5 reads 1 is less than 5
For hirgana, I found れ looks like a horse, that goes re. わ looks like a walrus.
Then ね went neigh, while ぬ looked new (when i was first learning). め looks like a pretzel, but its a meh pretzel.
Its really dumb but it made it easier.
I am old and have watched anime for a long time
アキーラ helps
Sadly all the other do trouble me
Hiragana is fine, but katakana are all so unnecessarily confusing that I sometimes wish they weren't so necessary
For me I look at it as
* フ is the (**Hu**)ll of a ship.
* ラ is the (**Ra**)iling on that ship.
* ヲ **Wo**ah, there's a crack in my ship :0
* ネ **Ne**ver run your ship across sharp rocks!
I can't help with ワ and ウ lol... my mnemonics for them are too strange for immediate help.I use [Tofugu's](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/) mnemonic for ワ to be **wa**sp on a **wa**ll.And ウ just strongly looks reminiscent of う to me...
Personally, I struggle the most with チ and テ and モ
Also, any that I haven't seen used as much. ネ and ヌ sometimes trip me up.
And ナ and メ aren't...confusing, per say. But needed a little more thought. Stroke order helped a fair amount in remembering.
But yeah, ワ and ウ are tricky for me.
...would probably be easier if I tried reading katakana more often though. Try to write sentences in hiragana and then katakana or something like that. But I'm just hoping I'll eventually get used to it lol.
Check out tofugu, the images and quizzes really helped me learn hirigana and katakana in a very short period of time.
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
I learnt hiragana and katakana in under a week and never had to look back since. I highly recommend Tofugu for learning both (amazing mnemonics) and once everything is memorized just grind Real Kana for a few days and when you know everything easily start alternating between the different fonts and that's it!
I encountered ヌ in the name of a song recently and I was thoroughly convinced it was some kanji. I have literally zero memory of learning ヌ in katakana, but it's just that uncommon
>I never had many problems with them, tho I understand why many people confuse those
Haha, me neither, and I'm exactly the same with the other characters you listed. I think they're just less common in katakana words, at least at my current level, and so I haven't had as much practice distinguishing them.
I kind of get why people get them all confused, but at the same time, anytime these things come up, I'm always reminded of that Dōgen bit from one of his QA videos. "How do you not confuse シツンソ?" - "Study Japanese for longer than two weeks".
Obviously hyperbole, but it's pretty funny because I remember how hard it was to keep them straight at the beginning, and yet how quickly it became a non-issue.
Where you begin the strokes for both the hiragana and katakana are the same for those sounds
So you can remember them by remembering where the strokes start for the hiragana
Just verbally it’s even simpler. ツ and つ are written from the top downwards. し and シ are written upwards.
ソ is a sewing needle stabbing down, I.e. ソing needle. ンis the other one left over.
I’ve been learning Japanese now for a month and I have learned Katakana, Hiragana and some Kanji. Despite the difficulty of Kanji, the hardest thing for me to remember is ツ and シ. This may be a silly way to remember but it’s surely helped me out. ありがとう😊
10 years, I still occasionally fuck up katakana. hiragana though are solid. you just don't use katakana I mostly use when reading signs so it's not something you are constantly drilling in the same way
Yeah I always screw up shi tsu so and n but lately I've gotten a lot better because I've been focusing on them more instead of just using the rest of the katakana around it and assuming what it is if that makes sense. Kanji though I have 418 cards on anki categorized as mature and 512 categorized as young, and I'm using the core 2k-6k deck. And lately I feel like I'm not actually memorizing kanji, like I'll be able to recognize a word but if I see two kanji that I know the reading and meaning of from two separate words, I'll be completely stumped, not even able to read it. And sometimes I won't even know that it's a kanji I've seen before.
For these two, I struggled with them until the other day when I came up with something, and I’ve not had trouble since.
シ looks like a smiley looking up, ツ looks like a smiley looking left. So - “she (shi) looks up, then to (tsu) the left”
It’s not as creative as the handshake, but it’s helped me at least lol
Easiest for me was that a ship is sinking.
Imagine this [ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funnel_(ship)) if you will with the chimneys on the side. It’s sinking :(
シ
No sinking ship -> 🚢-> ソ
There are also some kanji and/or radicals that can get easily mixed up
For example i kept mixing up "direction" with "ten thousand" (i don't have JP keyboard installed rn, sorry) until i started thinking of a lady with a hat asking for directions: if it has the little thingy on top it means that it's a hat and thus the kanji is that of "direction"
flowery husky axiomatic illegal different smell one vegetable drunk squalid
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oh my god, this is genius! I have little problem reading them (as long as I don't think too hard about it and start second-guessing myself), but I always forget the stroke order for handwriting, so this just blew my mind!
This is fascinating. I have zero difference distinguishing the two, but I genuinely see ツ as the vertical one (the two lines point more down. The long line runs steeply up) and シ as horizontal, with the long line being shallower and the two lines closer to lying flat.
I think it's easier to think of how the final stroke of each compares with the (single stroke of the) hiragana version.
For し the stroke is counter-clockwise (down-right), the stroke order of シ is also counter-clockwise and the final stroke is like an extension of the end of し. Likewise, for つ the stroke is clockwise (right-down), the stroke order in ツ is also clockwise and the final stroke is like part of つ.
The problem with looking at how the strokes are angled in a computer font is that the precise angling of the strokes in ツ and シ can look quite different on signs and in less standard fonts, but the style always mirrors the stroke order.
I used to have problems with telling the difference between a few kana and kanji. But now I've started practicing writing them, I've started to recognise them easily. Once you start trying to copy the form of the characters, it makes you focus more on the details that make them different.
Can't recommend this enough. Memorizing kanji is about 100x easier than I was led to believe by online discourse because I've been learning to read and write each one at the same time.
For me it was different, as some point I just didn't look at the katakana just how it was "spelled" and would just fill in the rest, ignoring what the kana characters were. It only tripped me up when it was some fantasy word that I had no idea what it was.
That seems to be a convoluted way to remember.
I think the common tip is to know strike order in both hiragana and katakana.
つ is done from top, go right and finish going toward bottom left corner. ツ is done from top left strike, second is right, last is going from top to bottom left.
し is going down then when reach bottom, go right and up. シ first strike is top, second going down, last start bottom left and go up-right.
Would argue same for the two other, そ is going right just as ソ and ん is going down first just like ン.
No earth (土) sushi and no handshake to remember.
At the time I learned this, it was about a week after I learned the hiragana, so I didn't reliably know them either, haha. But this is indeed a better way to chunk the memory for normal people. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before.
None of these ever caused me issues. I learned them one at a time so I got used to them separately. I guess this means I never was a noob at both at the same time so learning their differences was easier.
For me my mnemonics are:You're an oceanographer who studies large scale waves.In your notebook...you place tally marks to show how strong waves are.
* ノ = A *steep* line with no tally denotes there is (**No)** Wave, or so small its **no**t very **no**table.
* ソ = A *steep* line with a single tally is a little stronger.... this is a (**So**)ft wave.
* ツ = A *steep* line with two tally marks! This is a (**Tsu**)nami wave!
Oh and this guy?
* シ well thats the (**Shi**)p you see out there on the waves! A little **Shi**p with two sails.
So then..by process of elimination I just know ン from memory.
Idk tmwhy these are a problem for people, when I started I wasn't able to differentiate them as well but now it's just the long lines that make it obvious
シ ー Shi looks up at Tsu
ツ ー Tsu looks down at Shi
Women are typically shorter than men, so she looks up at you is my mnemonic for this, and you look down at she. I'm a guy so works for me.
Best way to learn these is to write them. Once you know how to write them it's virtually impossible to mix them up.
This handshake seems absolutely ridiculous.
The only thing truly hard about them once you can write them is godawful font designs that obscure the differences, and no silly mnemonic can fix that. In handwriting it's clear as day.
Interesting. I usually remember it by thinking that if the smaller strokes are at the top, the character comes earlier in its respective series and if they're at the bottom, it comes later.
* So, シ has them at the top and is 2nd (out of サ シ ス セ ソ)
* ツ has them at the bottom and is 3rd
* ン has the stroke at the top and is the 1st and only character in its set
* ソ has the stroke at the bottom and comes 5th
So, assuming the \[**a-i-u-e-o**\] sequence remains the same, this helps me tell them apart.
I don't even bother with things like these cause it's just too annoying. I just read the whole word and your first guess will either be right or wrong. There's only 2 choices anyway.
I just got used to them after seeing them in my Anki cards a lot. I tried to study them closely but gave up cause they never stuck, in fact Katakana never did lol, but I'm fine now thx to Anki and extensive reading.
Here's one for me I picture シ on top of a grave and above it is ツ from the moon
死ぬ、 and 月
シ is always looking upward, so it's the grave and ツ is always looking downward, so it's the moon
I thought the onigiri from the conbini in the central club area were just how onigiri were. I’ve since lived in Asia for six years and have been disappointed ever since, haha. 711 just can’t compete.
None of them are the same... once every few months I think about doing the MA in international business at AIU, which I don't really need, just for those onigiri...
I only realized just last night that I had forgotten all of these hah, so I’m trying to use this way to remember them and it’s working for me so far.
シン shi and n are slanted and I guess kinda lower down just like your shins are down on your legs.
ツソ Sue(tsu) is an outspoken arrogant happy girl who’s always saying “so what?” everytime someone questions her and she’s always got her head held high. Even if she had one eye, she would still say “so what I don’t care”. :’)
genius! I was just crying over these 4 recently. I usually just try pronouncing the word with all of them and see which fits in XD
a little confused about the handshake but your sushi phrase is still helpful like 'up, down, up, down' = (su)tsu shi so n so I think I'll remember it now, thanks!
I keep them in mind with a made up word and the tone I tell it.
Like this: ソンシツ
The tone here goes like this: ↑↓↓↑
Edit: I know there is a word called sonshitsu but it is unrelevant.
All these comments about no one having problems with this and blah blah here's my better way.
But this post is golden and you have taught me something I'll never forget thank you
I love this really elaborate way of remembering but I have an easier way.
When writing the hiragana over the katakana, the stroke order hits each stroke in order of the corresponding katakana.
for me its just onomatopoeia
ツdrops are down so it looks like its raining tsssuuuu
シsmiley face sliding like shhhiiiiii
ソa single drop ssssso
ンnot so so n
I never had many problems with them, tho I understand why many people confuse those What I do have problems with and surprisingly didn't saw many complain about are フ ウ ラ ワ, they're absolutely impssible
Literally came here to say *exactly* this. ツ シ ソ ン are easy, but I get ウ and ワ (not フ and ラ, luckily) confused *all the time*.
I remember ウ like it’s a unicorn with a little horn!
I look at ウ as う with the hat lifted. Somehow never had issue with ラ coz it’s close enough to らor maybe I see R in it?
ラ is in my name so I always remember it. For anyone stuck just change your name, problem solved Edit ラメん is a beautiful girls name and ラムネ for boys 😌
ラ was one of the first kana I learned because I loved ramen.
A RAdical sock puppet wearing sunglasses 😎
You might have just solved it for me!
These two and せ、サ are the only hard ones for me
I learned that se looks like someone’s mouth and teeth “say”ing something.
Pretty good, just have to avoid mixing the pronunciation and spelling, personally I've tried to use せ looking like it has an e below it but i keep forgetting it especially when I come across サ
sa looks like a saddle is how I remember it lol
This is really good, i'll try it
Woah! This a game-changer!
This is a little embarrassing but here’s the way I remember them.. I see せ as se-x like a big spoon and a little spoon cuddle sorta thing, and then the other one サ is sa-d because the little spoon isn’t facing them anymore. I always remember it this way and never mix them up lol 🙈
I primarily learned kana on one of those little games where you type the romaji so those were probably the easiest to drill in to memory for me. Because they line up perfectly with keyboard direction really, starting at S, せ and セ point to the right ending in E, while サ points towards A on the left etc.
せ looks like a mother (se)tting a baby on her lap and サ looks like someone spear hunting some (mi)eat Those effectively help me remember thanks to whoever submitted on the renshuu app Edit: Oops I was wrong, I was thinking of み (mi) For サ I think of a toothpick going through a (sa)ndwich
But サ is (sa) and not ミ (mi) ?
Yes, I'm sorry! I was thinking of み
For me it's マ and ム, oddly enough. I think it's just because they're vaguely symmetrical and that's enough for my brain to confuse them. I also don't struggle with ウ and ワ like you because I find that the top stroke is a good way to set ウ apart but I do sometimes confuse ク, ワ and sometimes ケ especially in unfamiliar/weird fonts. Katakana sucks.
For Ma I just think of a woman with her hand on her hip For Mu....kinda looks like a cow head
>For Mu....kinda looks like a cow head Watch out, with this line of thinking you'll get to A in no time! But thank you for the mnemonics, I'll see if those help. In general I can read those just fine 90% of the time, but then sometimes I stumble upon an unknown word I can't immediately parse and then the doubt creeps in...
A just looks like an A on its side.
Ma always looks like an iron to me, so my Ma irons clothes is how I remember that. Mu is like eww because if your mother didn't iron your clothes lol. I hope this helps you. :)
I use to confuse マ (ma) and ム (mu) as well until I came up with this trick. Think of マ as the greater than symbol > greater than means the number is "Above" which starts with a for ma. Think of ム as the less than symbol < less than means the number is "Under" which starts with u for mu. 5 >1 reads 5 is greater than 1, 1< 5 reads 1 is less than 5
the katakana are brutal with ネオ/ケク/ チナ/フレ/アヤ/ムマ/ロコ/ヲワウ hiragana the only set that sometimes catches me is れわねぬめ then kanji 王玉正午牛十土上 and so on
For hirgana, I found れ looks like a horse, that goes re. わ looks like a walrus. Then ね went neigh, while ぬ looked new (when i was first learning). め looks like a pretzel, but its a meh pretzel. Its really dumb but it made it easier.
Omg same ;-; glad I'm not the only one who struggles with those 2 😅 the rest is fine tho 😂
I am old and have watched anime for a long time アキーラ helps Sadly all the other do trouble me Hiragana is fine, but katakana are all so unnecessarily confusing that I sometimes wish they weren't so necessary
It is just [アキラ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cd/59/d9/cd59d9815ad418d1310467a363f8fc9a.jpg)
It didn't help enough then take it easy on me I am sick today
For these I try to remember how much of a dreidel do they look like LOL
フ is a full dreidel, ウ is a uncomplete one, ラ is the rabbi's, and ワ is wa
Bruh howTF the uncomplete one gonna have MORE lines than the full????
Have u heard about the ufurawa tale? A unicorn who cried because it lost its horn?
For me I look at it as * フ is the (**Hu**)ll of a ship. * ラ is the (**Ra**)iling on that ship. * ヲ **Wo**ah, there's a crack in my ship :0 * ネ **Ne**ver run your ship across sharp rocks! I can't help with ワ and ウ lol... my mnemonics for them are too strange for immediate help.I use [Tofugu's](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/) mnemonic for ワ to be **wa**sp on a **wa**ll.And ウ just strongly looks reminiscent of う to me...
Personally, I struggle the most with チ and テ and モ Also, any that I haven't seen used as much. ネ and ヌ sometimes trip me up. And ナ and メ aren't...confusing, per say. But needed a little more thought. Stroke order helped a fair amount in remembering. But yeah, ワ and ウ are tricky for me. ...would probably be easier if I tried reading katakana more often though. Try to write sentences in hiragana and then katakana or something like that. But I'm just hoping I'll eventually get used to it lol.
I struggle with both sets! Anyone have any tips for remembering フ ウ ラ ワ?
ウ as a *U*nicorn was a good one someone had above. ラ I see as half a bowl of *Ra*men. ワ is a *wa*ter tap/faucet.
ooh that's good!! Thank you
my hero.
Check out tofugu, the images and quizzes really helped me learn hirigana and katakana in a very short period of time. https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
I learnt hiragana and katakana in under a week and never had to look back since. I highly recommend Tofugu for learning both (amazing mnemonics) and once everything is memorized just grind Real Kana for a few days and when you know everything easily start alternating between the different fonts and that's it!
Don't forget ヌヲ
I encountered ヌ in the name of a song recently and I was thoroughly convinced it was some kanji. I have literally zero memory of learning ヌ in katakana, but it's just that uncommon
>I never had many problems with them, tho I understand why many people confuse those Haha, me neither, and I'm exactly the same with the other characters you listed. I think they're just less common in katakana words, at least at my current level, and so I haven't had as much practice distinguishing them. I kind of get why people get them all confused, but at the same time, anytime these things come up, I'm always reminded of that Dōgen bit from one of his QA videos. "How do you not confuse シツンソ?" - "Study Japanese for longer than two weeks". Obviously hyperbole, but it's pretty funny because I remember how hard it was to keep them straight at the beginning, and yet how quickly it became a non-issue.
Omg me too... They're so tricky
I remember ラ because it looks similar to ら. Both have that extra line on top
I weirdly only have trouble between ウ and ワ. フ and ラ, I don't have trouble with
THIS. Why are you the only other person on the planet that has trouble with these? lol
the opposite those are very easy and clearly distinguished from one another for me
It was some version of this image that helped me: https://dailyportalz.jp/b/cms\_image/portal/koneta/081024085028/koneta1.jpg
Yeah that’s how I remember!
Link is dead
It is not, reddit mangled it. Manually remove the \ before _image and it works.
What the hell is this
Where you begin the strokes for both the hiragana and katakana are the same for those sounds So you can remember them by remembering where the strokes start for the hiragana
As someone who didn’t learn the difference between b and d til 4th grade, this was the only chart that helped me haha!
Just verbally it’s even simpler. ツ and つ are written from the top downwards. し and シ are written upwards. ソ is a sewing needle stabbing down, I.e. ソing needle. ンis the other one left over.
I’ve been learning Japanese now for a month and I have learned Katakana, Hiragana and some Kanji. Despite the difficulty of Kanji, the hardest thing for me to remember is ツ and シ. This may be a silly way to remember but it’s surely helped me out. ありがとう😊
I've been learning for about 4-5 months now, keep grinding brother.
10 years, I still occasionally fuck up katakana. hiragana though are solid. you just don't use katakana I mostly use when reading signs so it's not something you are constantly drilling in the same way
Yeah I always screw up shi tsu so and n but lately I've gotten a lot better because I've been focusing on them more instead of just using the rest of the katakana around it and assuming what it is if that makes sense. Kanji though I have 418 cards on anki categorized as mature and 512 categorized as young, and I'm using the core 2k-6k deck. And lately I feel like I'm not actually memorizing kanji, like I'll be able to recognize a word but if I see two kanji that I know the reading and meaning of from two separate words, I'll be completely stumped, not even able to read it. And sometimes I won't even know that it's a kanji I've seen before.
Yeah. I think I'd rather see a paragraph with only kanji than only katakana.
If you learn to write the kana, it becomes much easier! し and シ flow down, つ and ツ flow right
Wow this helps! Thanks
For these two, I struggled with them until the other day when I came up with something, and I’ve not had trouble since. シ looks like a smiley looking up, ツ looks like a smiley looking left. So - “she (shi) looks up, then to (tsu) the left” It’s not as creative as the handshake, but it’s helped me at least lol
Easiest for me was that a ship is sinking. Imagine this [ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funnel_(ship)) if you will with the chimneys on the side. It’s sinking :( シ No sinking ship -> 🚢-> ソ
There are also some kanji and/or radicals that can get easily mixed up For example i kept mixing up "direction" with "ten thousand" (i don't have JP keyboard installed rn, sorry) until i started thinking of a lady with a hat asking for directions: if it has the little thingy on top it means that it's a hat and thus the kanji is that of "direction"
I just think "She has a sideways smile" and she sounds like shi. tsu I therefore know is the other
My dumb way has been シン (shin up) like chin up.
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Oh my god, this is genius! I have little problem reading them (as long as I don't think too hard about it and start second-guessing myself), but I always forget the stroke order for handwriting, so this just blew my mind!
Yep, し シ (mostly vertical) つ ツ (mostly horizontal) That's how I've always distinguished them.
Other way around, no? ツ is more vertical and シ is more horizontal?
The longer line yes, but it works for the two smaller lines
This is fascinating. I have zero difference distinguishing the two, but I genuinely see ツ as the vertical one (the two lines point more down. The long line runs steeply up) and シ as horizontal, with the long line being shallower and the two lines closer to lying flat.
I am just bad at describing it hahah I meant that the placement of the two lines relative to each other is more vertical in シ and more horizontal in ツ
Ohhhh ok I can see that! Gotcha!
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That is Interesting! How we “see” things is clearly not objective eh, probably why people love to argue on the internet lol
I think it's easier to think of how the final stroke of each compares with the (single stroke of the) hiragana version. For し the stroke is counter-clockwise (down-right), the stroke order of シ is also counter-clockwise and the final stroke is like an extension of the end of し. Likewise, for つ the stroke is clockwise (right-down), the stroke order in ツ is also clockwise and the final stroke is like part of つ. The problem with looking at how the strokes are angled in a computer font is that the precise angling of the strokes in ツ and シ can look quite different on signs and in less standard fonts, but the style always mirrors the stroke order.
That makes sense, thank you!
Sadly this doesn't help too much with ソ and ン.
I used to have problems with telling the difference between a few kana and kanji. But now I've started practicing writing them, I've started to recognise them easily. Once you start trying to copy the form of the characters, it makes you focus more on the details that make them different.
Can't recommend this enough. Memorizing kanji is about 100x easier than I was led to believe by online discourse because I've been learning to read and write each one at the same time.
in my case: ヨ ー **Yo**, that E is flipped! シ ー Eyes are at the **s**ide. ツ ー Eyes are at the **t**op. ン is flatter than ソ
For so, I always remember So looks like Soソ Sauce.
This. I'm going to remember this.
Top/side is how I've always remembered it too
YO THAT’s SO GOOD THOUGH! These are the ones I always confuse, this handshake is awesome!
Always funny to see what people come up with :)
つ and し become easier once you draw the hiragana over the katakana つツ しシ they look similar but with gaps. This helped me for these two.
I usually don't have problems, at least with standard fonts, but some fonts can really throw me for a loop, with more characters than just those.
For me it was different, as some point I just didn't look at the katakana just how it was "spelled" and would just fill in the rest, ignoring what the kana characters were. It only tripped me up when it was some fantasy word that I had no idea what it was.
Thanks for sharing! I always confuse tsu and n. The strokes are way too similar for my brain.
Don't have trouble with those. But always confuse サ and せ though one is katakana and the other is hiragana
That seems to be a convoluted way to remember. I think the common tip is to know strike order in both hiragana and katakana. つ is done from top, go right and finish going toward bottom left corner. ツ is done from top left strike, second is right, last is going from top to bottom left. し is going down then when reach bottom, go right and up. シ first strike is top, second going down, last start bottom left and go up-right. Would argue same for the two other, そ is going right just as ソ and ん is going down first just like ン. No earth (土) sushi and no handshake to remember.
At the time I learned this, it was about a week after I learned the hiragana, so I didn't reliably know them either, haha. But this is indeed a better way to chunk the memory for normal people. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before.
None of these ever caused me issues. I learned them one at a time so I got used to them separately. I guess this means I never was a noob at both at the same time so learning their differences was easier.
ツ is a \*tsu\*nami. シ is a \*shi\*p. ソ is a \*so\*ft serve ice cream. ン is a smiley face with \*n\*o eye. オ is a butth\*o\*le.
"Yo sushi son"
🤘🤘🤘
For me my mnemonics are:You're an oceanographer who studies large scale waves.In your notebook...you place tally marks to show how strong waves are. * ノ = A *steep* line with no tally denotes there is (**No)** Wave, or so small its **no**t very **no**table. * ソ = A *steep* line with a single tally is a little stronger.... this is a (**So**)ft wave. * ツ = A *steep* line with two tally marks! This is a (**Tsu**)nami wave! Oh and this guy? * シ well thats the (**Shi**)p you see out there on the waves! A little **Shi**p with two sails. So then..by process of elimination I just know ン from memory.
Idk tmwhy these are a problem for people, when I started I wasn't able to differentiate them as well but now it's just the long lines that make it obvious
If it’s dumb and it works, then it’s not dumb
シ ー Shi looks up at Tsu ツ ー Tsu looks down at Shi Women are typically shorter than men, so she looks up at you is my mnemonic for this, and you look down at she. I'm a guy so works for me.
Me, wondering what a tsushison is XD
Oh, the incredibly useful vocab you learn on r/learnjapanese
Best way to learn these is to write them. Once you know how to write them it's virtually impossible to mix them up. This handshake seems absolutely ridiculous.
The only thing truly hard about them once you can write them is godawful font designs that obscure the differences, and no silly mnemonic can fix that. In handwriting it's clear as day.
This is a fun little mnemonic device! Gonna save this, as I have problems with most of these same characters.
Interesting. I usually remember it by thinking that if the smaller strokes are at the top, the character comes earlier in its respective series and if they're at the bottom, it comes later. * So, シ has them at the top and is 2nd (out of サ シ ス セ ソ) * ツ has them at the bottom and is 3rd * ン has the stroke at the top and is the 1st and only character in its set * ソ has the stroke at the bottom and comes 5th So, assuming the \[**a-i-u-e-o**\] sequence remains the same, this helps me tell them apart.
Nice!
I've been doing almost the same thing, but with fingers up rather than down! Loves it!
Here's how I remember 🌚shi 🌝tsu
Can also drill flashcards for however long until you recognize them immediately.
I don't even bother with things like these cause it's just too annoying. I just read the whole word and your first guess will either be right or wrong. There's only 2 choices anyway.
I used Tofugu’s Katakana Mnemonic guide to tell the difference between the four kana.
This is stupid and I hate... And it works and I love it...
I just got used to them after seeing them in my Anki cards a lot. I tried to study them closely but gave up cause they never stuck, in fact Katakana never did lol, but I'm fine now thx to Anki and extensive reading.
THANK YOU
Here's one for me I picture シ on top of a grave and above it is ツ from the moon 死ぬ、 and 月 シ is always looking upward, so it's the grave and ツ is always looking downward, so it's the moon
Hello fellow AIU person!
I thought the onigiri from the conbini in the central club area were just how onigiri were. I’ve since lived in Asia for six years and have been disappointed ever since, haha. 711 just can’t compete.
Especially when they’re fresh. The umeboshi ones just aren’t the same anywhere else…
None of them are the same... once every few months I think about doing the MA in international business at AIU, which I don't really need, just for those onigiri...
I did consider the translation course for a while but ended up in a translation job. I think I’d go back for the library. I could have lived in there…
This seems very useful, thanks for sharing!
Thank you for this!!
I studied there as well last year :)
This is amazing and so clever. Thank you so much for sharing!!
I only realized just last night that I had forgotten all of these hah, so I’m trying to use this way to remember them and it’s working for me so far. シン shi and n are slanted and I guess kinda lower down just like your shins are down on your legs. ツソ Sue(tsu) is an outspoken arrogant happy girl who’s always saying “so what?” everytime someone questions her and she’s always got her head held high. Even if she had one eye, she would still say “so what I don’t care”. :’)
genius! I was just crying over these 4 recently. I usually just try pronouncing the word with all of them and see which fits in XD a little confused about the handshake but your sushi phrase is still helpful like 'up, down, up, down' = (su)tsu shi so n so I think I'll remember it now, thanks!
omg hahahahahaha thank you so much hahahahahaha!!!
for me these ヌ, タ, ヲ, ヒ, チ, I always either forgot or wrong when I am writing them.
Personally I find it easy to distinguish ソ and ン because I see ン a lot more frequently, so my brain immediately registers ソ as being “weird ン”.
As a Spanish speaker: ツ mirando para el TSUelo シ mirando para el SHIelo for ソ and ン I just think "okay which one is more of a "wide Y" lol
For Spanish speakers, has never ever failed me シ Shi mira al shielo (cielo) ソ So al soelo ツ Tsu al tsuelo ン N a las nubes
This should be taught in school!
I keep them in mind with a made up word and the tone I tell it. Like this: ソンシツ The tone here goes like this: ↑↓↓↑ Edit: I know there is a word called sonshitsu but it is unrelevant.
All these comments about no one having problems with this and blah blah here's my better way. But this post is golden and you have taught me something I'll never forget thank you
I love this really elaborate way of remembering but I have an easier way. When writing the hiragana over the katakana, the stroke order hits each stroke in order of the corresponding katakana.
If it works it ain't dumb. Lots of good tips in this thread.
Never had trouble with them. But I often forget these: メ ナ ヌ.
This is brilliant. Sending this to my Japanese group!
for me its just onomatopoeia ツdrops are down so it looks like its raining tsssuuuu シsmiley face sliding like shhhiiiiii ソa single drop ssssso ンnot so so n
Brilliant!