Hiragana or Katakana?

[Kimiko711]

I'm not sure witch one to practice!
I'm so confused!

Witch one is the main one?

And what are the diffrences between them?

[Harisenbon]

You need both.

Hiragana is used for pure Japanese words, while Katakana is used for foreign words that are brought into the Japanese langauge.

りんご-- ringo -- apple -- Hiragana
パャRン -- pasokon -- Personal Computer -- katakana

[redfoxer]

i think you should practice them both since there both used quite often in text. hirigana more so but as some people have told me, katakana is used quite frequently if u actually visited japan and walked around some tourist places. In regards to it, learn both. what to learn first? which ever you feel suits u to learn first. which ever you think is easier to learn first. there is no right or wrong way. if your really intrested in the language, you'll want to know them all. lol, i cant help but say this now, but as a phrase from pokemon, "gotta learn em all"

[nonenone1234]

I learned katakana first coz its used frequently and words in katakana are usually English words.
Also, its easier than hiragana(squiggly characters).

[Daichi]

nonenone1234 wrote:
I learned katakana first coz its used frequently and words in katakana are usually English words.
Also, its easier than hiragana(squiggly characters).

Pesonally speaking, I don't agree. I started learning both in parallel, but it wasn't long before I noticed hiragana was sinking in a lot faster. Now I know all the hiragana, but not even half of the katakana. Sure, katakana will probably be easier to write - the strokes are a lot simpler. But I found hiragana much easier to remember.

[Harisenbon]

For some reason most foreigners are the same. No matter which you're better at in the beginning, you use hiragana so much that it's soon going to eclipse katakana as what you can read the easiest.

[Die]

I think it's better to learn hiragana first because as everyone else said, it's used a heck of a lot more and it is the "main one" as you put it. If you're going to be writing Japanese, you better practice hiragana much more than katakana. It's also pretty easy to pick up katakana afterwards, not only because some katakana look similar to hiragana (ka for instance), but because you are sounding out a word you know, so if you got three or four of the syllables recognized, then you can probably make out the word anyway.

There is one small advantage of learning katakana first, and that's the satisfaction of understand exactly what you're reading as soon as you learn them since most words in katakana are borrowed from English. However, this advantage is only short-term...so if you're serious about the long term, I would say hiragana first and foremost! Tourists and those not interested in learning Japanese seriously should learn katakana first though.

[redfoxer]

hirigana i learnt quite easily. katakana was harder cos i didnt see it as often, and they kinda look similar. dont get me started on shi/n/tsu/su combo....it took me forever to figure them apart...