Japanese in your first month: hiragana first, then long vowels

This guide is for standard Japanese, the Tokyo-based variety taught in most courses. It covers what to do in your first month: which script to learn first, how the three scripts fit together, and the two listening traps that catch almost every English speaker early on: long vowels and pitch.

Why hiragana comes before romaji

Romaji, Japanese written in the Latin alphabet, looks like a shortcut. It is useful for the first few days, but it causes three problems if you keep relying on it.

• It hides vowel length. The city name とうきょう appears as Tokyo on most signs and maps, yet it has two long vowels: Tōkyō. If you learn from the short spelling, you learn the wrong word length.
• It invites English pronunciation. You see "r" and say an English r. The Japanese sound is a quick tap of the tongue, close to the "tt" in American English "better".
• It disappears. Beyond the first lessons, textbooks, menus and signs use kana and kanji.

Hiragana has 46 basic characters, and each one is a single beat of sound. Two small marks extend the set without new shapes: か (ka) becomes が (ga), and は (ha) becomes ば (ba) or ぱ (pa). Small ゃ combines with a character before it: き plus ゃ gives きゃ (kya). Once you know the 46, you can sound out anything written in hiragana.

The three scripts, without panic

Japanese mixes three scripts in ordinary text. Each has a clear job, which makes them easier to learn one at a time.

Script	Main job	Examples
Hiragana	grammar endings, particles, many native words	ありがとうございます (thank you)
Katakana	loanwords and foreign names	コーヒー (coffee), テレビ (TV)
Kanji	meaning-carrying characters for most nouns and verb stems	山 (mountain), 人 (person), 日本語 (Japanese)

Japan's official list of general-use kanji, the jōyō kanji, has 2,136 characters. You do not need to think about that number in month one. Learn kanji inside words you already know, and expect most of them to have more than one reading: 人 on its own is ひと, but in 日本人 (にほんじん, a Japanese person) it is read "jin".

One workable order for the month:

1. Weeks 1–2: hiragana, a few characters a day, read aloud as whole words rather than single letters.
2. Week 3: katakana, practised on loanwords you already know.
3. Week 4: your first kanji, each learned as part of a word with its hiragana reading.

Long vowels: the first listening trap

Japanese counts beats (called morae), and a long vowel is one extra beat. That beat changes the word.

Short vowel	Long vowel
おばさん (obasan), aunt, middle-aged woman	おばあさん (obāsan), grandmother, elderly woman
おじさん (ojisan), uncle, middle-aged man	おじいさん (ojīsan), grandfather, elderly man
ビル (biru), building	ビール (bīru), beer
ゆき (yuki), snow	ゆうき (yūki), courage
ここ (koko), here	こうこう (kōkō), high school

How long vowels are written:

• In hiragana, a long a, i or u adds the same vowel: おばあさん, おじいさん.
• A long e is often written with い, as in せんせい (teacher), which is said with a long "e" in normal speech.
• A long o is usually written with う, as in とうきょう, and sometimes with お, as in おおきい (big).
• In katakana, a bar marks the long vowel: ビール, コーヒー.

Double consonants work the same way. A small っ adds a held beat: きて (kite, a form of 来る, to come) and きって (kitte, a postage stamp) are different words.

Drill: clap once for each kana as you say each word. おばあさん is five claps (お, ば, あ, さ, ん); おばさん is four. If your claps are right, your timing usually is too.

Pitch accent: notice it, don't fear it

Standard Japanese uses pitch, high and low, where English uses stress. A few common words differ only in pitch:

• 雨 (あめ, rain): high, then low.
• 飴 (あめ, candy): low, then high.
• 箸 (はし, chopsticks): high, then low.
• 橋 (はし, bridge): low, then high, with the drop on a following particle, as in はしが.

Context almost always tells a listener which word you mean, so a pitch slip rarely stops a conversation. Pitch patterns also vary by region; the patterns above are for the Tokyo standard. In month one, aim to notice pitch rather than memorise rules: when you learn a new word from audio, note whether it starts high or low, and copy it.

A ten-minute daily routine

1. Three minutes: read a short hiragana word list aloud.
2. Three minutes: take two long-vowel pairs from the table above. Listen, clap the beats, repeat.
3. Two minutes: read three katakana loanwords and say them the Japanese way, with every beat.
4. Two minutes: say one pitch pair while moving your hand up or down with the pitch.

Keep the routine small enough to do every day. Ten steady minutes do more for reading and listening than an occasional long session.

Tonada, a language-learning app for adults, has an English-to-Japanese course (A1–B2) with audio and speaking practice.