ChipChat Japanese Training Helps You Learn Japanese Characters - Hiragana and Katakana - Quickly & Easily!

Welcome to ChipChat Japanese Training, an exciting new Internet service that helps you to learn Japanese characters - Hiragana and Katakana - quickly, easily, and inexpensively!

ChipChat works with any computer that can connect to the Internet with a Java-enabled browser.

Japanese Kana & Kanji

Japanese kana are comprised of "hiragana" and "katakana". These kana represent sounds in the Japanese language, much like our A, B, C ... Several kana are combined to produce a word, such as ko-n-ni-chi-ha (こんにちは) (pronounced as "konnichiwa") for "Hello".

Hiragana (ひらがな)

Hiragana are used for Japanese words and grammatical parts of the language, such as verb endings for past or present tense. Hiragana script is "fluid" and "rounded", similar to cursive writing. Marty Cawthon (the author of these applets) recommends that you learn Hiragana first, katakana second, and kanji third.

ChipChat Hiragana Drill

Katakana (カタカナ)

Katakana are used by Japanese to spell out foreign words and phrases as well as the names of people and the sounds that animals make (meow, oink, moo, woof, etc). Japanese also use Katakana to write the names of Japanese people if they are unsure of the proper Kanji for that name. Katakana script is angular with many sharp corners - simlar to block printing.

ChipChat Katakana Drill

Kanji (漢字)

Japanese Kanji are mostly Chinese characters - some kanji are identical to Chinese characters, some are slightly different, and some take on different meanings than in Chinese. Most kanji have a "square shape" to them and look more complex than do Hiragana and Katakana. Each kanji has one or more meanings, and usually more than one pronounciation. There are thousands of kanji. Many years ago Japanese people simplified some kanji to form Hiragana and Katakana.

ChipChat Kanji Drill

In the works...

How Difficult is it to Learn Hiragana and Katakana?
Many people can learn to recognize all Hiragana or Katakana in about 40-50 hours of practice with ChipChat Japanese Training.
What Do You Need to use "ChipChat Japanese Training"?
All you need is access to the Internet and a Java-enabled web-browser.
No Software Installation Required!
Here's some more good news: There's no need to spend time on software installation, no need to experience that 'software installation frustration'.
Automatic Updates!
Software changes quickly - on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. The ChipChat Japanese Training software is updated at the ChipChat Servers automatically.
How Much Does It Cost?
ChipChat offers it's ChipChat Japanese Training available for anybody at no charge.

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