Review & Giveaway 17: Writing Japanese Hiragana

I have received five more books from Tuttle Books!
And, as always, they have agreed to give (gave) one free copy of each book to a random visitor to my blog!

The book I’m reviewing today is titled “Writing Japanese Hiragana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)” by Jim Gleeson.

Writing Japanese Hiragana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)

I will put the details of the free drawing for this book at the end of this post.

The written Japanese language has three scripts: hiragana and katakana (collectively known as “kana“) and thousands of kanji.

The script that is taught in this book is hiragana. This script is mainly used for verb tense, prepositions, etc. but, technically, it’s possible to write Japanese completely in hiragana. In fact, books for young Japanese children are written this way…because hiragana is the first script that Japanese children learn.

Hiragana (and occasionally katakana) is also used to write “furigana, which is a type of “pronunciation guide” that is often written above difficult and seldomly used kanji characters.

“Writing Japanese Hiragana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)” is a good book for those who wish to learn Japanese. When studying Japanese, you should start by learning to read and write hiragana.
Not only will it help you to be able to read signs, menus, etc in Japan…but knowing and using hiragana (as well as katakana and kanji) helps you to pronounce Japanese properly.

This book has plenty of spaces for you to practice writing the hiragana characters as you learn them…which is the best way to remember them.
It also has you write some example sentences using the characters you’ve learned up to that point.

“Writing Japanese Hiragana (An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook)” can be purchased through Amazon here.

But, as I said above, Tuttle Books has agreed to give (gave) one random visitor to my blog a free copy of this book.

To enter the drawing for the free book, submit this form by 2015 August 31st:

***** Updated August 31st, 2015 *****

This special promo ended on 2015 August 31st. One random winner was selected and contacted directly by Tuttle Publishers (via email) with the details about the free book.

Thank you to all who entered, but only the winner was contacted.
*****