Is Katakana hard?

[betita03]

Hiragana is hard but Katakana is even tougher especially for non-Chinese people. What do you think about learning Katakana? Can you share your experience to us here?

[Hattori Hanzo]

I have to say that Katakana for me is really much harder to learn than Hiragana. The characters look all so similar. This is not the case with Hiragana. There are just a few characters to learn (compared with Kanji) but still, I keep forgetting them on a regular basis

[BWL]

I guess the shapes of katakana tend to be more similar to each other (and thus easier to confuse learners) than hiragana. The boxy, angular look is also very jarring in aesthetics compared to the smoother lines of hiragana. I like to think that this is the reason why katakana is used in to write foreign names and words as well as onomatopoeic sound effects, the jarring, angular visuals are meant to stand out on a page of kanji and hiragana.

[Czarownica]

It might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that katakana is no harder than hiragana. I've learned katakana in a few hours and after some practice I had no problems with it, except from forgetting how to write "so" and "n" (I often confuse them).

Katakana really is a piece of cake compared to kanji, so be brave and you can deal with it!

[Amatenshi]

I never found katakana to be that hard at all. You just need to make sure you don't mix up things like "shi" and "tsu" (シ and ツ), or "so" and "n" (ソ and ン). If it helps, find something that will help you memorize the katakana. Oddly enough, I used a little app for Ubuntu to learn it, back when I didn't have a Windows laptop to use. There's all sorts of things out there that you can use, if you really need to.

I guess it also helps if you have things in katakana that you need to read, like things in a Japanese video game. I've played on the Japanese servers of some MMOs, and while I didn't know a whole lot of kanji, I could read item/place names because a lot of them were in katakana. Even though it's rather elementary, nothing helps with retention more than something to compare your knowledge against.

[BWL]

I also notice more and more English loanwords being used in popular magazines and even newspapers in Japan so that it looks as if a page from a magazine seems to be dominated by katakana! Even common words which have Japanese equivalents like "talent" and 'story" are being replaced by タレント(tarento) and ストーリー (sutoorii) in pop culture magazines. You could sometimes find half a page full of katakana and hiragana and hardly any kanji!

[Amatenshi]

I also notice more and more English loanwords being used in popular magazines and even newspapers in Japan so that it looks as if a page from a magazine seems to be dominated by katakana! Even common words which have Japanese equivalents like "talent" and 'story" are being replaced by タレント(tarento) and ストーリー (sutoorii) in pop culture magazines. You could sometimes find half a page full of katakana and hiragana and hardly any kanji!

I have a volume of Dengeki G's Magazine lying around somewhere because of the nendoroid I bought a while back. I should go through it and see if I can find pages "dominated by katakana". I've wanted to be able to go back and read the whole thing, too, though that's probably far off right now.

[zZJoennZz]

I don't think its hard. I memorize and learn it for 1 week. And think hiragana is harder.

[Miya]

I think katakana is harder than both hiragana and Kanji. Sure, Kanji characters are hard to write, but I don't have a problem reading them or figuring out what they mean.

For katakana, I can never tell apart ツ(tsu) and シ(shi) and ソ(so) and ン(n). It's also hard for me to sound out and write the loan words in katakana. So for me, katakana is the hardest out of the three 

[mccanono]

Katakana is easier for me.

It's all about the strokes in Shi and Tsu and S and N. One is from up to down and the other one is from down to up, respectively.

Like any other language, it takes time getting used to it. So practice and practice more.

[Yrimvar]

Katakana is pretty easy for me. The only things i had a problem with were shi, tsu, so and n.

I find hiragana harder, and kanji reaaally hard.

[Dame6089]

Back in the day, I knew all of the Hiragana and Katakana. It is just memorization really. Use flash cards if it helps.

Kanji, on the other hand, is a whole different beast. Way too many characters for me.

[broknkyboard]

It's about the same difficulty as Hiragana, you just find less occasions to use it so you get less practice. After you've learned it it's important to refresh your memory every now and then and you should be fine.

[Lasonax]

I don't think the Katakana is that hard, but then again I didn't find the hiragana to be very hard either.

It's true that the katakana has a lot of symbols that are very simlar to some other ones, but even so I didn't find it very hard to remember the small differances.

[AExAVF]

Personally, I have no issues with learning katakana since I would always try to experiment with the foreign name, translating it through trial and error.  For instance, most proper nouns of persons, places, and others with no equivalent to hiragana or kanji, katakana is almost always used.  Visiting a Japanese Wikipedia page will help me especially in reading various katakana.

[ang.diwata]

When I was studying Katakana and Hiragana, I find the former easier since, I think it has more of sharp edges, unlike Hiragana, which in my opinion, have a lot of curves.

There are several confusing characters though, when the two systems are compared side-by-side. Like 'ka' for example.