Printable Memory Book Templates Pdf: Fill & Download for Free

This may seem like a stupid point to mention, but as an addendum to the other answers referring to specific material, make sure you actually have a fair understanding of the Japanese language first. Unlike in English or other Western languages, words aren't generally separated by spaces, so the only real guidance you have as to when one word begins and another ends is when a Kanji appears, or you suddenly encounter a string of katakana, etc. If you don't already know the individual words, you'll just see character salad.Assuming you're starting from the very beginning, start by learning spoken Japanese in concert with Romanji, paying attention to how words are divided into Vowel and Consonant-Vowel parts, rather than Vowel and Consonant parts as in English, which will help with the basic understanding how Japanese spelling works, and it's intrinsic differences from western systems (aside from ‘ん/ン’ being roughly equivalent to ’n', all kana each represent one Mora, either a Vowel or Consonant-Vowel combination).From there, start learning Hiragana, using one of the resources mentioned in other answers, or something like Kodansha's Hiragana Workbook (Or something similar - I just happen to have that one sitting on my coffee table in front of me, and it's been helpful); many sites also offer free printable Kana worksheets, I'd recommend doing your practice-writing in there, rather than the limited space provided in a workbook. Just be sure you follow the correct stroke order. And before you say “I only want to learn how to read, why writing exercises?”, human memory works along multiple pathways, and the more stimuli from across your senses you can associate any given piece of information with, the better you will remember it: writing adds both a tactile and visual component, and if you speak it out loud every time you write it, you're adding both an auditory and speech component as well. Every little bit helps.Another tool that helped me was to read manga; Manga makes for a great starting point as all the kanji have furigana accompanying them (hiragana that show how a kanji is read), and, because of the format, you won't be overwhelmed with walls of text as you would be with a light novel; Of course, you still won't actually be able to read in the traditional sense to start with (I started on manga after barely having learned the vowel kana and a few random ones, and it took me several minutes to decode a single panel), but if you keep doing it in addition to other forms of practice, you'll gradually find yourself looking up less and less. As a bonus, manga will contain katakana as well, so by looking those up at this point, you'll have a head start when you start on katakana in earnest.Once you've learned your hiragana, move on to katakana - the process is essentially the same as before, because katakana map to the same sounds as hiragana (essentially they're an alternate form used in certain situations, such as spelling foreign words). I found it helpful to continue reading manga while studying katakana, as it kept the hiragana fresh in my mind, which is important when you're learning a set of characters with the same sounds, as you don't want to overwrite the associations you've already built for the hiragana with the katakana, lest the former end up slipping your mind. The more you read, the more you'll start to gain a sense of when to use one or the other as well. At this point, you should be able to read light novels as well (and visual novels with furigana), and I found it helpful to write out full lines from them. For practicing writing more than just individual characters, you'll want Japanese manuscript paper - Genkouyoushi - which has a grid marked on it designed to give proper inter-character spacing using one square per character (you don't need to actually buy any, if you do a Google search for “Genkouyoushi Paper pdf”, you'll find plenty of sites offering free printable pdf templates). Once you can read a line, close the book, and write it correctly without peaking, or, if you have someone who can check your work, you can write random phrases correctly without any external assistance, all that's left is kanji.An important point to remember here is that if all you are looking to do is read manga and light novels, you don't really need to learn kanji. Your Japanese education won't be complete without knowing at least the more common kanji, but if you've met your goal, this is as good a place to stop as you'll find.That is mainly because learning kanji will take longer - much longer. At this point you can read all furigana-assisted Japanese writing, and so essentially have the basics down. But even an elementary school Japanese education requires learning 10 times as many kanji as kana. It's best to think of it as a journey, one which can be fun, productive and rewarding, even if you never reach your destination. Unlike kana, where there is a clear number of characters that you must learn, after which you can say “I know kana!”, it's up for discussion just how many kanji there even are. Japanese children are taught 1,006 in elementary school, and an additional 1,130 by the end of high school. An entire other large category of Kanji are solely used in names. A widely-regarded kanji dictionary contains over 50,000, although the overwhelming majority of these neither you nor the average Japanese citizen is likely to ever encounter. In general, there are roughly 2,000–3,000 more commonly used ones, and a few thousand more you might occasionally encounter.I'd suggest starting off by following the example given by Japanese schools, and trying to learn the 1,006 kyouiku kanji first, followed by the 1,130 jouyou kanji. That will leave you at a level roughly equivalent to the average Japanese high school graduate. I wish I could be of more help at this point, but that's as far as I've gotten. I'm still working on my elementary school kanji.