皆さん、こんにちにゃあぁ！「Kiki+Koko:Let’s NihonGO!! Online」へ　ようこそ！ Welcome to Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!! Online! We’re your guides to Japanese language and culture, Kiki and Koko! We’re here to provide you all of the resources you’ll need to eventually reach your Japanese language learning goals. But, even if we provide for you our very best (which of course, we always do, and we continue to strive for better with your support)ーBut, again, even if we provide for you the best resources to lead you every step of the way, learning isn’t completely passive. Of course, simply revising by having a look at our lessons for a bit every day or every other day is helpful to anyone’s journey. But, it’s important to at least give a bit of engagement and effort in your revision/studies. If you have been learning with us since the beginning, firstly, we are so proud of you, and we hope you’ve been enjoying the ride and hopefully have found yourself knowing more than you realised at this point; but secondly, we’ve been sure to emphasise the importance of the method of learning being paramount to actually absorbing the content. We made sure to give you the tools to help you to differentiate very similar looking characters, whether dakuten versus gojuuon, or gojuuon vs youon, or simply similar looking characters. And, though QUIZBO™’s challenges and visuals are useful, it’s very important to have these concepts organised within your own mind. Though we can provide different methods, each person sometimes has vastly different ways of understanding something, making things click. It may be just the way you categorise something in your mind or something about the shape of a character or recognising patterns. It’s just about getting that initial understanding when you pass over that gap between almost understanding it to really comprehending it, and then driving it home until it becomes second nature. It’s important to have those sorts of building blocks during the beginning stages as you’ll find that no matter how complex future characters may seem, they all have the same concepts in mind and many repeating elements that you can either use to your advantage or be sure to differentiate. But, that’s just something to think about, as today, we’re combining three elements, 濁点、dakuten, 拗音、youon, and the all important aspect of kinaesthetic learning! That’s right, QUIZBO™くん is here with his fancy arrows and numbers, and it’s time to get out those writing utensils and surfaces on which you can create some form of marking! It’s time to write 「ぎゃぎゅぎょ」！

It’s important to complete these lessons chronologically, not just for the sake of order, but also so that you can properly build upon the previous knowledge. If you haven’t already become comfortable with at least ひらがな五十音, hiragana gojuuon, and their modified counterparts, we recommend you take a quick step back to the start. It may seem fun or even convenient to cram all of the characters into as few sessions as possible, but for most humans, it’s just not a great method for long-term use. It can be easy to accidentally store the characters and their stroke orders on that short term memory shelf. And, sure, you may have an amazing short-term memory, but eventually, something will bump that precariously placed shelf and it’ll fall off. Rather, it’s important to continue to pay mind to that short term memory shelf, come back and dust off the knick-knacks for at least a few minutes a day, until your brain finally realises, We should probably put these away for safe keeping! They’re too valuable to be knocked into the abyss! And, lucky for you, no matter how much or how little you think you can store in your long term memory, most humans can store a few petabytes! That’s like 1.8 billion floppy disks! That’s right, almost two billion floppy disks. So, you’re pretty capable of memorising Japanese and eventually mastering it. It just takes time, effort, and patience! Don’t rush yourself. Each and every new character and vocabulary word is something brand new to you in some way or another. There’s no need to stress yourself out over something that should be enriching and fun. But, sometimes, it can be difficult to make things enjoyable when you have to figure out a proper game plan, so that’s why we have formulated a way for you to get the most out of your session. (And, if something else works for you, then feel free to contact us! We’re sure someone else may also have the same learning style as you and may benefit.)

Get the most out of your session:

As you write these, we recommend you take the usual steps we mention in the writing section along with a few others in order to get the most out of your study sessions:

• Open up the reading lesson on a different device or in a different window
• Play QUIZBO™’s soundbyte of that specific character (or blend)
• Repeat after QUIZBO™, pronouncing it aloud
• Write the character (or blend) using the stroke order
• Say the character (or blend) aloud once more
• Listen to QUIZBO™’s pronunciation once more to make sure you have it correct

brought to you by 「ぎゃぎゅぎょ」, 「がぎぐげご」、「やゆよ」, and 五十音順

Stick around for more Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!! Online, after these messages!

Is that what you’re into…? Now, back to Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!! 

その調子で！君ならできるよ！⭐Lets do our best!!

Now, once you have your reference ready, you can take a look if you should forget how to pronounce them, if or if you’re just making sure your pronunciation is accurate, or if you’re using the previous lessons for differentiation and revision. And, if you’re new, you might wonder who this blue computer gentleman is. This is QUIZBO™くん, our favourite quiz generating robot computer who also functions as a very useful display generator, will be using the latest technology to show you how to write 「ぎゃぎゅぎょ」– This will be with the age old device we know as… numbers and arrows. Sure, these methods could seem simple, but after years upon years of methods this seems to be the one that helps people without going to fast or slow. That way it will show each character’s stroke order properly whilst also giving a good view of the actual character’s overall look. And, remember, if you’re having trouble with the step-by-step bits, just have a look at the previous stroke orders to see how each character is meant to look throughout each step of the process.

How to use stroke order

Before we properly begin, we figured it would be best to give you a quick overview on how to read these diagrams. For each character, there’s mostly 3-4 strokes that are written in a specific order. Each number signifies which stroke should come first. Start where the circled number begins and write the stroke in the direction in which the arrow is pointing. If you want to see what each step looks like and what yours should look like at that stage, be sure to take a look at the original related stroke order. It’s time to equip your pencils, grab a pen, take out a notepad, a digital device and a stylus, anything you need to write safely and comfortably. Let’s write hiragana youon! 

Let’s NihonGO!!

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints:
Whilst our usual helpful hints tend to be focused on the form of each character, we reckoned it more important to focus on placement, as if you’d like to get a bit more hints about how these characters are written individually, you can always have a look at the previous lesson 8 and lesson 11. 

So, with 拗音、youon, you’ll want to focus on size and placement of the 小さいや、chiisai ya, aka:「ゃ」. In handwriting, the 「ゃ」is about a fourth of a regular character. To reinforce this, QUIZBO™くん placed guidelines to show these quadrants which should also help with placement. When writing horizontally, (e.g. left to right), you’ll place it in the lower left corner. However, if you are writing vertically, (e.g. top to bottom), you’ll place it in the upper right hand corner of its own space / the space below the「ぎ」 character in its own width.

However, you may wonder how this plays out in relation to the modified character with the extra 濁点, dakuten. Just be sure to keep it simplified in your mind by remembering that the 濁点, dakuten, actually is its own character width when writing. Nothing about the modified character changes from lesson 11, as it in your writing, it takes up one square. If you have any trouble with the placement of the extra modifying marks, just be sure to return to lesson 11 for more useful hints. As long as you don’t have trouble with the dakuten placement, everything follows what you’ve already learned about 拗音, youon, as to where you place the small character.

Again, we really recommend that if it’s been a while or you’ve never written 「ぎ」, it can look more complex than it actually is, and it can be a lot to look at, so have a look at lesson 11 for some step-by-step guidance. We’re sure you can do it! Just be patient and take your time, one step at a time.

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints:
There’s not much else we can add that we didn’t mention in the beginning or in the previous lesson, and we’d rather have you apply your time to proper revision and writing practice rather if you already have the previous hints taken to heart. But, again, if you have trouble with these stroke orders on their own, have a look at lesson 8 and lesson 11. But, otherwise, all of the same hints from the previous hint apply to this one.  Also, if you’d just like some hints on 拗音, youon, writing in general, we have some useful ones in the previous lesson.

Kiki+Koko’s Helpful Hints: Have a look at lesson 8 and lesson 11. if you’re finding any trouble with these or would like some character-specific hints. But, otherwise, all of the same hints from the previous hints apply to this one. You’ll often see this one and the previous one written with 長音, chouon, as well. So, it can be useful to practise writing 「う」with this or practising with some words that include 長音, chouon.

And, there you have it! That was 「ぎゃぎゅぎょ」！This is certainly where it becomes important to get your thoughts and concepts organised as we continue to stack skills. This will only make concepts like 漢字, kanji, more graspable (and maybe even simpler than it seemed it was before). Just be sure to focus on these characters initially as to get it encoded into your mind before you start challenging yourself and putting them against other similar characters to test your skills. We’ll have vocabulary for you to practise with these characters in the next lesson, and you can even compare those with their unmodified counterpart. But, always remember, everyone learns at a different pace. If you ever feel like you’re hitting a wall or are getting overwhelmed, just step away from it for a bit. Of course, anything worth learning will always take a bit of effort, time, and patience, but it’s important to keep things light, like an oasis different to the rest of your studies. Focus on your goals and what you’ve accomplished thus far. While everyone focuses on their speed, it’s more important to focus on quality. And, try to enjoy it. It’s a journey, after all, and you don’t want to get to the end without having fully learned what you wish you had or not enjoyed the unique steps in between. And, we hope to continue to be a part of your journey every step of the way!

We do our best to give you all of the tools you need with each new lesson and article, and whilst humans usually have a generalised learning pattern, there’s many cases where certain methods help more than others. Maybe there’s a trick you have that’s helped you? Be sure to leave a comment as maybe it’ll help someone else, as well. But, maybe you’re ready for even more information to store in your mental cupboard. You can subscribe to the Electronic Mailing List of Tomorrow, today, found usually at the bottom of the site page or the sidebar on desktop. You’ll get the latest alerts, tools and resources for everything from surviving in Japanese language to our latest projects sent straight to your inbox. That’s articles, videos, podcasts, and more!

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Thank you for joining us! We hope that you continue with us on this adventure, and we appreciate that you’ve chosen us to assist you on your Japanese learning journey.

Stay Safe!!
♡Kiki+Koko

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