74
Nelly Patricia Galora-Moya; Miryan Consuelo Salazar-Tobar
Investigación y Desarrollo • Volumen 11 • 2016 • Diciembre • Nº 1 • ISSN: 1390-5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557
LEARNING A LANGUAGE OF TWO ALPHABETS: PRACTICAL
APROACHES IN HIRAGANA AND KATAKANA ACQUISITION
FOR BEGINNER LEARNERS OF JAPANESE LANGUAGE
APRENDIENDO UN LENGUAJE DE DOS ALFABETOS: ENFOQUES
PRÁCTICOS DE APRENDIZAJE EN HIRAGANA Y KATAKANA
PARA PRINCIPIANTES DEL IDIOMA JAPONÉS
Ryota Saito / Osaka University / ryotapanama@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
T
he Japanese language has a 128 million speakers and has around 4 million learners in the world. In Ecuador, however, there are only six
institutions offer Japanese classes to 150 learners. This small number of learners may be due in part to geographic and cultural distance, as
well as the economic and political circumstances separating Ecuador and Japan. Furthermore, the uniqueness of the linguistic characteristics of
Japanese is also a major factor influencing learner reluctance. One of the principal characteristics of this language is its three writing systems:
hiragana, katakana and kanji. This paper outlines the linguistic characteristics of Japanese, focusing on hiragana, katakana and kanji, and sets
out the difficulties which learners experience in this area. In the second part, with reference to these characteristics, the study introduces class
activities to show how learners may acquire the basic characters of the writing systems as an important first step in learning Japanese, with the
aim of reducing the burden on the language acquisition process. Through this research, the importance of peer-learning and collaboration between
learners and teachers is highlighted as a means of facilitating approaches to the teaching and learning of Japanese.
Key words:
Japanese Language, Writing system, hiragana/katakana, Class Activity
RESUMEN
E
l idioma japonés tiene 128 millones de parlantes nativos y aproximadamente unos 4 millones de estudiantes en el mundo. En Ecuador, sin
embargo, solamente seis instituciones ofrecen clases de japonés con 150 estudiantes. Este pequeño número de estudiantes puede deberse
en parte a la distancia geográfica y cultural, así como las circunstancias económicas y políticas que separan Ecuador y Japón. Sin embargo, la
singularidad de las características lingüísticas del japonés es también un factor que influye en la reticencia del alumno. Una de las principales
características de esta lengua es sus tres sistemas de escritura: hiragana, katakana y kanji. Este artículo describe las características lingüísticas
del japonés, centrándose en hiragana, katakana y kanji, y expone las dificultades que los estudiantes experimentan en esta materia. En la segunda
parte, con referencia a estas características, el estudio presenta actividades de clase para mostrar cómo los estudiantes pueden adquirir los ca-
racteres básicos de los sistemas de escritura como un primer paso importante en el aprendizaje de japonés, con el objetivo de reducir la carga en
el proceso de adquisición. A través de esta investigación, se destaca la importancia del aprendizaje entre pares y la colaboración entre estudiantes
y profesores como medio de facilitar los métodos de enseñanza y el aprendizaje del japonés.
Key words:
Japanese Language, Writing system, Hiragana/Katakana, Class Activity
Investigación y Desarrollo • Revista de Divulgación Científica y Cultural • Volumen 11
Diciembre 2016 • PP 74 - 83 • Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo • U.T.A. • Ambato - Ecuador
ARTÍCULO RECIBIDO: 21/11/16
ARTÍCULO ACEPTADO: 30/11/18
ISSN: 1390 - 5546 / e-ISSN: 2361-2557
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Learning a language of two alphabets: practical aproaches in hiragana and
katakana acquisition for beginner learners of japanese language
INTRODUCTION
J
apanese is a language spoken by almost 128 million people
within and outside of Japan, and has around 4 million
learners around the world (Ethnologue, 2018). For Ecuadorian
people, however, it is not a popular language compared to
other languages, such as English, French or Italian. From this
perspective, the main objective of this paper is to describe
the principal characteristics of Japanese as experienced by
beginner learners, focusing on acquiring hiragana and katakana,
along with an explanation of the activities used in class with
Ecuadorian learners of the language. Additionally, with the aim
of encouraging a more academic discussion about Japanese in
Ecuador in the future, it is hoped that this report will serve as a
first step in this process.
JAPANESE LANGUAGE ALPHABETS
T
he Japanese language is considered typologically unique and,
therefore, fundamentally different from Spanish: as Comrie
(2010) states, “Japanese is no less typical overall than English.”
Kageyama (2010), on the other hand, argues that “Japanese is
not ‘special’, but a rather common type of language in terms of
word order and other macro-parameters.” This section, through
these studies, introduces the basic characteristics of Japanese
as encountered by beginner-level students, focusing on its
phoneme and word order systems.
Phoneme
The Japanese language has 23 phonemes: 5 vowels and 18
consonants (Iori, 2007, p. 25). Every phoneme of a word is, in
addition, normally created by a combination of a consonant with
a vowel, and one phoneme corresponds to one character as
shown in Example (1).
Vowels:
/a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/
Consonants:
/k/, /g/, /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, /ts/, /n/, /h/, /b/, /p/, /m/, /r/, /j/, /w/, /N/, /Q/, /:/
(1) エクアドル (Ecuador): エ/e/ ク/ku/ ア/a/ ド/do/ ル/ru/
Word order
I
t is considered that the word order of Japanese is normally
subject (S)-object(O)-verb(V) (Takami, 2010, p. 149), in contrast
to Spanish S-V-O order (Terasaki, 1987, 2005). Examples (2) and
(3) mean, “I eat sushi” in Japanese and Spanish respectively. It
is observed, however, that this frequently changes at random
in real conversation. Japanese has several particles that inflect
each word to identify its function in sentences, allowing this
flexible word order. For example, (2) has two particles は[wa] and
を[wo]. The former marks the topic/subject, and the latter the
object of transitive verbs. Therefore, Examples (4) and (5) have
the same particles as (2), expressing “I eat sushi” in alternative
formulations. The Japanese sentences in Examples (2), (4) and
(5) were constructed by the author based on Sato (2015, p 1, 2)
and the Spanish in Example (3) is based on Terasaki (1987, p 28).
Table 1: Japanese language word order
Source: developed by the author based on Takami (2010)
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Ryota Saito
Although Examples (2), (4) and (5) all mean “I eat sushi”, there
are different implicatures. The sentence information is delivered
and understood depending on the information level, the speaker’s
perspective, and/or empathy between the participants in the
conversation (Takami, 2010, pp. 142-149, 166-173). Nishimitsu
(2010) refers to a pragmatics perspective, whereby meaning in
sentences has both the literal and the conveyed meaning, or
conversational implicature. In a conversation or discourse,
therefore, a sentence should be considered within its context.
For example, in (4), “sushi” comes first, since the speaker would
like to emphasize: “what I want to eat is sushi, not other dishes
that you have recommended”. In (5), on the other hand, the
emphasis is on whether s/he eats sushi or not. Both of these are
different in form and implicature to (2), and these meanings all
require a context to be understood naturally.
Writing system
The previous sections observed the Japanese language briefly
from two perspectives: phonemes and word order. This part will
introduce the three-fold writing system of hiragana, katakana
and kanji, which defines “Japanese as a very rare language in
the world.” (Shinozuka and Kubota, 2012, pp. 98-97) Figure 1
exemplifies the use of these three character systems.
Figure 1: Japanese language writing system
Source: elaborated by the author, based on Banno et al. (2011)
“Hiragana and katakana work as the alphabet in Japanese and
each represents a sound.” (Banno, Ikeda, Ohono, Shinagawa
and Tokashiki, 2011, p. 24) There are 46 characters of hiragana
and katakana used to transcribe all Japanese syllables. Kanji,
“the logographic and ideographic characters which originally
come from Chinese characters” (Okada, 2016, p. 7) represents
sounds, ideas, meanings and/or notions, and is mainly used
for the stems of verbs, adjectives and nouns. In addition, every
hiragana, katakana and kanji character has a correct order and
direction of strokes when written. Sentences in Japanese may be
written in two directions: horizontal and vertical. Vertical direction
sentences are read from top to bottom and right to left, following
the sequence ①-②-③ in Figure 1, and horizontal sentences
are read the same as in English or Spanish, from left to right as
shown at the top of Figure 1. Horizontal direction sentences are
often seen in science books and computer magazines, whereas
vertical direction sentences appear generally in Japanese
literature. In magazines, advertisement posters, newspapers and
many other products, however, a mixed style of the two directions
may be observed, such as that used in the text shown in Figure
2, which is a page from a text book on Japanese.
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Learning a language of two alphabets: practical aproaches in hiragana and
katakana acquisition for beginner learners of japanese language
Figure 2: example of the sentences: horizontal and vertical
Source: taken from Banno (2011, p. 274)
This section has provided a brief overview of the characteristics
of the Japanese language from three perspectives: phonemes,
word order and the writing system, all of which are required in
order to have a basic knowledge of the language. The following
part will show, through the description of two class activities,
how learners start to learn the Japanese language, focusing
especially on hiragana study.
Hiragana
learning
I
n language teaching, there are two main methods: Direct
Method and Indirect Method. The former is a method in which
only the target language is used, even in first level lessons. On
the other hand, the latter allows the teacher and learner to utilize
language common to both as a vehicle for learning. The use of
these two methods depends on the class situation and policies
in place in the learning context. Each method has positive
and negative aspects and should be used to optimal effect by
achieving a certain balance, as Tanimori states:
In Japanese language education, the direct method is
recommended in many cases. On the other hand, it is
effective to utilize the vehicular language to some extent.
Moving forward, it will be useful to diversify the methods
of instruction that maximize learning outcomes, by utilizing
the vehicular language flexibly, while combining various
teaching methods (2016 p. 81).
In Japanese language learning, however, there is one element
that must be learned as a first step before deciding which
method to follow: hiragana and katakana.
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Ryota Saito
Figure 3: Lesson 1, first level
Figure 3 is a page from the first lesson of a language learnign
textbook. The Latin alphabet is used under each sentence to help
the learners to identify and pronounce the Japanese characters.
After several lessons, sentences then appear as shown in Figure 4.
Source: taken from Banno (2011, p. 10)
Figure 4: Lesson 5, first level
Source: taken from Banno (2011, p. 96)
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katakana acquisition for beginner learners of japanese language
There is no Latin alphabet on this page. This means the learners
are forced to read without support, utilizing the characters more
adequately, as a result. Therefore, it is essential to introduce
hiragana and katakana at the very beginning of the learning
process. Through the same approach, learners start to practice
kanji later on. This means, as Kobayashi and Zennyoji (2011)
contend, hiragana and katakana are an important part of the
whole learning process. The following section focuses on
hiragana, the most basic character set, with several practice
patterns and class activities.
Hiragana
learning: practice and exercise
To acquire hiragana, it is clear that learners must make
a considerable effort, such as writing repeatedly and/or
mechanically. Tsujimura (1995) argues, on the other hand, the
importance of communicative games and productive activities
for alphabet learning.
Figures 5 and 6 are examples of hiragana practice and a small
exercise from a textbook.
Figure 5 and 6: example of hiragana practice
Source: taken from Fernández Gutiérrez (2008, p. 17, 24)
Practice in Figure 5 uses a simple and mechanical pattern.
Learners are able to identify hiragana with images to help
memorize it. Figure 6 shows a word-search exercise in which
learners try to find words by combining hiragana shapes with
its sounds. Once the learners have completed these initial
practices and exercises, the class moves on to other activities,
as described below.
Hiragana
learning: activities
The positive effects of using activities for hiragana learning have
been presented in various studies. Mitani (2013) and Tsujimura
(1995) claim that game activities stimulate the motivation of
learners and create a more positive atmosphere in the classroom.
Tsujimura (1995) refers to the psychological burden for learners
in hiragana learning, and suggests activities which help to reduce
stress and smoothly guide learners to the next step. Tsuru
(2005) experiments with several games focused on hiragana
acquisition and mentions the effectiveness of dynamic activities
in the classroom. With reference to these studies, this section will
introduce two activities that are practiced in real classes.
The first activity is hiragana concentration. This is a simple card
game, known alternatively as Match-Match or Pairs, in which all
cards are initially put face down on a surface and participants
flip over two cards to find pairs of the same number. In class, it
is preferable that learners participate in the preparation of the
game, making hiragana cards and organizing rules. Each turn,
the learners flip two cards, and they pronounce the hiragana
written on the cards. Even when a correct pair of hiragana cards
is flipped over and matched, the learners only obtain points if
they are able to produce a correct pronunciation.
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The procedure of the game is:
1. Hiragana cards are prepared by Learners: two cards per character;
2. Two cards are flipped to find a pair and pronounce the hiragana written on it;
3. If the pronunciation is not correct, the cards are turned back;
4. If the pronunciation is correct, the cards are retained as one point;
5. The game continues until all cards are taken.
Picture 1: The learners playing hiragana concentration in a class
The second game is the hiragana back writing game. First,
learners form a line facing the board, and the teacher shows
a card exclusively to the learner in the last row. S/he identifies
the hiragana on the card, then starts to write it on the back
of the next person. During the game, talking or looking back
is prohibited. Ultimately, the person in the front row writes the
hiragana on the board and pronounces it. The game ends when
they complete all the hiragana that are introduced. This game is
effective for learning the right order of hiragana strokes, because
every character has its proper order of writing. Therefore, it is
impossible for the character to be communicated to the next
person if one student writes it incorrectly.
Source: photograph taken by the author (2016)
The procedure of the game is:
1. Participants form a line from the board back and facing it;
2. The teacher shows one hiragana card to the person in the last row;
3. Each participant writes the character on the back of the person in front of them;
4. The front row student writes the hiragana on the board which has been passed
forward by every member of the line, and pronounces it correctly;
5. The game continues until all characters for that day have been completed.
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katakana acquisition for beginner learners of japanese language
Picture 2: The learners playing Hiragana Back Writing Game in a class
Source: photograph taken by the author (2016)
Two class activities for hiragana learning have been introduced
in this section. Successful gameplay depends on the teacher
introducing hiragana clearly. Mitani (2013) observes through
her experiment using card games, it was observed that there
are a certain number of learners who made mistakes because
of the similarity of figures such as [る/ru/]-[ろ/ro/] and the
pronunciation between [し/shi/]-[ち/chi/] and [す/su/]-[つ/tsu/].
Miyamoto (2001) mentions in his investigation about the hiragana
learning process of American children. There is a tendency for
errors to occur in both the morphological (figure of alphabet) and
syllabic (pronunciation) resemblance found in hiragana. In view
of this, it is important to highlight to learners common points
of confusion for learners, such as those described above, both
before and after the activities.
All of these games may equally be applied to katakana practice.
However, Shinozuka & Kubota (2012) and Okada (2016), in
discussing the relative difficulty of the three writing systems
and the balance of practice of each, conclude that katakana
is the most complex. Shinozuka & Kubota (2012) designed a
visual-input test for native Japanese speakers, showing words
of eight syllables in hiragana, katakana and kanji. Their findings
indicate that katakana is the most difficult to recognize, followed
by hiragana and kanji. The study argues that to recognize the
meaning of hiragana and katakana words, two processes are
needed, which are phonological recognition and subvocalization.
Kanji word-recognition, on the other hand, requires a simpler
process because it uses logographic and ideographic characters
which are recognizable by visual resemblance.
The reason why katakana recognition is more difficult than
hiragana, according to the study, is that most words in daily use are
written in hiragana or kanji. Okada (2016) argues that katakana
learning is treated as less important compared with hiragana and
kanji, because of the lack of an effective method and/or material
for instruction. Nonetheless, it is acknowledged that “the number
of katakana words are increasing rapidly.” (MEXT, 2011, par. 3).
Mistakes in the use of katakana are observed more frequently
than hiragana in the classroom: learners confuse its figures and
break the rules of adaptation of foreign words to the Japanese
phonetic system. From this perspective, an effective introduction
of both hiragana and katakana is needed in the classroom.
Peer learning
For the purposes of this study, class activities introduced were
limited to two. Both of which are communicative and practical
activities for beginner-level classes. These two games, among
othersnot mentioned in this article, are effective because of
their simplicity, and it is possible for learners to participate in
their preparation. In this regard, Tsujimura (1995) states that the
making of materials and helping in class preparation increases
learner motivation and allows the best learning method to be
identified. According to Tateyama (2007), on the other hand, from
the peer leaning perspective, it is important and effective that
learners share their language acquisition process with each other
to help build independent learning habits.
Peer learning is an approach whereby learners progress in their
acquisition through mutual conversation and the sharing of their
experience in the class. In Japanese language acquisition, peer
learning has been applied mainly to reading and writing practice
for intermediate students. This is due to the “strong trends of
Direct Method in Japanese teaching.” (Tanimori, 2016, p. 82)
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There is no prohibition, however, on using it correctly with any
level and any group of learners. Ikehara (2012) argues that peer
learning works positively in hiragana and katakana teaching
even at the absolute beginner level, especially when compared
to the teacher-centered style. Hence it is important to develop a
collaborative mindset for both the learners and teachers.
CONCLUSION
In this article, two principle topics have been set out: Japanese
language characterisitcs and hiragana learning. The first part
shared basic information of the Japanese language from the
perspective of phonemes, word order and the writing system,
highlighting key differences between Spanish and Japanese.
The second part dealt with the process of learning Japanese
language at beginner-level, with reference to the importance of
learning the characters as the first step in Japanese language
acquisition, facilitated by peer learning approaches.
Within that process, two basic class activities were introduced:
hiragana concentration and hiragana back writing game.
However, there are, as yet, no reliable results on the use of these
techniques in the real classroom. Therefore, more integrated
studies with statistical data and quantifiable results are required
from future research in order to corroborate the approaches
outlined in this paper. In addition, there are no existing studies of
the problems of hiragana and katakana acquisition focused on
native Spanish speakers. From that perspective, there are ample
opportunities for future research.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Centro de Idiomas,
Universidad Técnica de Ambato, for giving me the opportunity
of presenting this paper. It is a great honor that this work may
contribute to current and future research at this institution.
Finally, in addition, I wish to refer to the current circumstances of
Japanese teaching in Ecuador. Japanese language education in
Ecuador is still at the beginning of its growth. In the year 2016,
the Association of Japanese Language Teachers was established
and has started to plat a role. The Japan Foundation of São
Paulo (2017) informs, however, that in Ecuador there are just six
universities and one private school that have Japanese classes
and almost 150 learners in total, so expansion is needed and
the provision of greater opportunities of learning. The demand
for Japanese may be not as great as for other languages, but it
is clear that it exists. Therefore, it will be an honor for this paper
to be a part of this movement, allowing Japanese to be ever
