How Long did it take you to learn Hiragana?

[makisuki]

I didn't mean that I'm best than you, I just mean that I thought that kana took just some hours to be learned

I hope that it's not the case in the USA but in France, there is a kind of stupid competition between japanese studients.
As I'm studying in 2 different departments, I almost never see the other japanese studients but, I remember that at the beginning of the first year everyone was saying things like:
"I've learnt 50 kanji last night" or "I know every kana just by reading them once"...
As they were saying that at the beginning of the year, I thought it was right and that this kind of competition hadn't already started.

sorry, as it was what I heard by other people learning japanesse, I thought that kana could be learnt in less than 1 hour without been abnormal or giving the impression to say : I'm the best.

[Mike Cash]

Treating Japanese as a contest is a long-standing tradition among Japanese learners.

[makisuki]

As I started my studies in an other department, this notion of competition didn't existed at all. that's very strange to see that this kind of behaviour existes also in studies were there's no selections.
well, my idea of how fastly japanese can be learned is totally twisted by this competitions.

[NocturnalOcean]

If you manage to learn kana in 30 minutes, you kinda need to have photographic memory, as you kinda need to learn around 1 every 30 seconds. And I am pretty sure most of us don't have photographic memory, oh boy do I wish though.

[poppop]

learning how to read Hiragana and Katakana is like learning how to read over again. so.. practice practice practice. it wouldn't take more than a week to memorize Hiragana or Katakana if you study a few hours a day though.

[makisuki]

anyway I've always had a good memory.

but to come back to the first question, the questions about how long japanese can be learnt are often asked on forums and the only really answer that can be given is that it totally depends on your memory (or even on the kind of memory you have)
If you tend to have a memory that use your hearing (sorry I don't know the english word for it), learning kana and kanji will be harder for you.

I advise you to try defining what kind of memory you have (hearing, eyes, writing...), because I think that japanese is one of the language that needs the most memory.

[Madscotsman]

It took me about 3 weeks at about 6 hours worth of study a week (all done during work hours )

I also like this site for testing what I have learned :
http://nihongoresources.com/language/lessons/lesson-00/practice.html

[Miyu-rin]

Hmm, I think it took me, like, 1-2 weeks. xD; Yeah I know, I'm sad.

[shima_no_ko]

Hiragana wasn't much of a problem - maybe a couple of days... but for some reason I find katakana harder to remember (I suppose they're not used as often in my textbook, so I have a greater tendancy to ignore & forget them)!

Of course the difficulty of remembering the kana doesn't really compare with my next challenge of trying to learn the endless supply of kanji out there...! @_@

[tanuki]

It took me about two weeks to "learn" hiragana. I still need more practice to read them faster and I sometimes have to think for a while to write some of them (ゆ comes to mind) but I don't really "forget" them.

[gollybype]

sugoi...... people here were just smart...... :p :p :p

[Gundaetiapo]

Treating Japanese as a contest is a long-standing tradition among Japanese learners.

Supplementing with inflated self assessment makes for a mighty combo.

[Mike Cash]

Gundaetiapo wrote:

Treating Japanese as a contest is a long-standing tradition among Japanese learners.

Supplementing with inflated self assessment makes for a mighty combo.

Two of the things that can make being around fellow gaijins an annoyance sometimes.

[burstandbloom]

yeaaah 5 minutes beat that.

ok actually like 2 - 3 weeks.

[katafei]

Well, hiragana took me a few weeks, I guess. As for katakana I still don't have that down....bit of a blind spot, I'm afraid.
so every now and then I go back to this SITE to practise some more.