Learn Japanese Hiragana - a comprehensive and complete textbook for Japanese language students and enthusiasts, with handwritten examples

Officially published as of today! Learn Japanese Hiragana is one of three books on the subject of Japanese language and etymology  that I have been working on for some time now. Although Learn Japanese Hiragana and Learn Japanese Katakana  are separate and stand alone books, so it is possible to buy them as stand alone volumes.

The most significant thing that distinguishes my books from any other hiragana and katakana textbooks out there, is that all and every single syllabary or a character was handwritten the way it should be. There is a huge discrepancy between a handwritten Japanese and computer fonts, and this subject is hugely neglected. When I started to study Japanese language 14 years ago, I always wished I had a book with handwritten examples of kanji, hiragana or katakana.

But there is more. Not only each book has handwritten examples of hiragana and katakana, but also the kanji from which each of kana syllabaries evolved. Further, since hiragana evolved from kanji in cursive-script form, I included three different handwritten calligraphy scripts for each kanji to show a clear evolution from the standard script through semi-cursive to cursive script. In case of katakana I did the same thing with kanji radicals that each katakana evolved from.

I have provided a detailed explanation of the origins of sounds of modern katakana and added a phonetic guidance based on pronunciation found in the online Oxford dictionary of English language. You should be able to replicate the proper sound of each katakana syllabary wit ease.

In addition, I discuss the history of evolution of hiragana and katakana on a background of the history of Japanese calligraphy. I have included hand written stroke order charts of each syllabogram, with arrows pointing towards the correct direction of writing. All handwritten examples are based on traditional or historical Japanese calligraphy.

Last but not least, I have included space for exercises, where you can practice your writing modelling yourself on the examples I have provided.

Learn Japanese Katakana and Learn Japanese Hiragana is now available on my store on lulu.com, but in few weeks it will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. but if I receive enough requests I consider publishing it also in electronic form for Kindle, Nook, iBooks.

Visit my page on Lulu bookstore to see preview of the book. 

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