Japanese

While not necessary at all to learn, enjoy, or even get good at Karate, knowing some basic Japanese can help to add to one's enjoyment and understanding of Karate and Japanese culture. It's also just nice to know you're pronouncing things correctly.

Karate Words

See Vocabulary

Pronunciation

This is an excellent article with information on pronouncing Japanese

Reading Japanese

Hiragana

A writing system of Japanese, hiragana is phonetic so if you can read it, you can say it (unlike English). Tofugu present an excellent resource on learning to read hiragana here They also go over correct pronunciation of sounds.

Katakana

Katakana is another writing of Japanese, it uses the exact same sounds as hiragana and is just another way to represent the same sounds. It's usually reserved for things like loan words or for providing emphasis (kind of like how use capital letters to SHOUT.) Here is another excellent resource for learning from Tofugu.

Kanji

Kanji is the most difficult of Japanese alphabets to learn and the characters themselves originated in China. Wanikani is an excellent resource for learning kanji, however for the average person's needs (looking up what a kanji means), using a dictionary like Jisho is probably enough.

Resources

Some resources for learning Japanese

• Spaced Repetition and Japanese: The Definitive Guide: An intro to what I consider one of the best tools for learning in general (not just languages)
• Tofugu: All kinds of articles around learning methods and resources (as well as about Japan and it's culture)
• Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese: Mostly grammar but goes over pronunciation
• Reddit's /r/LearnJapanese's Starter Guide: A community dedicated to Japanese learning, filled with resources for learning