Most gaijin (foreigners) who go to Japan want to be able to read some Japanese.

Let me say that most foreigners SHOULD try to learn to read some Japanese…especially if they plan on staying awhile.

Problem comes when the foreigner starts with the wrong syllabery.

The Japanese have two and they are unique to Japan. The kanji is largely borrowed from the Chinese hanzi.  But the kana ‘alphabets’ belong to Japan.

There are two kana ‘alphabets.’ One is called hiragana and the other is called katakana.

Hiragana and katakana are made up of some 40 characters each and if you put your mind to it you can learn them in a few hours. That’s how long it took me.

The question is - which do you learn first?

For some reason the gaijin go after the hiragana. Wrong choice!

Katakana is much more useful than hiragana. Signs, foreign words borrowed by the Japanese and sounded out, menus and such are almost always in katakana…but not always, of course.

If you are shopping and don’t know whether it is flour or some other white powdery substance…the katakana on the package is likely to give it away.

If you are heading for Japan and want to be able to read, even a little, by all means, start with katakana.

If you don’t know which is which, ask a Japanese friend to point it out. It becomes very obvious very quickly.

Enjoy Japan…impress your Japanese friends…and make good business relations.

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