こんいちわ！わたしのガイドへようこそ！
Greetings, and welcome to my guide!

For many years, I have had a keen interest in Japanese culture.
I would watch anime on the Internet, hearing a unique, powerful language all the while
I also grew to appreciate other elements of Japan, such as locations, and food.

However, I felt confined that I had to have everything translated, and that I could only look in awe and confusion. I used to be exactly like most other people, and could only do so much with my very much limited knowledge and understanding. So I began to tackle that head on by learning Japanese.

Go! Go! Nippon! is a great game to break out of the loop, to learn more about Japan, and to experience that culture from a different perspective, one of its golden selling points for me being the dual display of English and Japanese. This is where the inspiration for this guide has came from.

I want to help those inspired by Japan to find somewhere they can begin
By the end of this guide, I hope to have helped at least some of you out there.

(Please note I'm just as new to learning as the next person, this is based purely on what I found helpful for myself. I realise this guide won't be for everyone, but I hope it provides at least some form of help, or a basis upon where to begin)

The Japanese language consists of three main alphabets
- Hiragana
- Katakana
- Kanji

In kindergarden, children learn hiragana first. Hiragana is used to write native words, thus is a great starting point for everyone that is interested in the language. By learning hiragana, you can move on to learn basic conversations, such as greetings, and asking for directions.

The second alphabet learnt is katakana - unlike hiragana, katakana is used to pronounce words NOT native to Japan. You will find many words that come from our own language, such as Idol (イドル, i-do-ru) and Start (スタート, su-taa-to).

Kanji is probably the main bulk of Japanese. It is used to describe individual words, it incorporates both hiragana and katakana. Like how in English dictionaries you may find "words", in Japanese dictionaries, you may find a lot those words to be kanji. Unfortunately my own knowledge on kanji is very limited, so I'll speak no more of it for this guide.

In this guide I will talk about...
- Learning kana
- Memory Techniques
- Examples

I will NOT be talking about...
- Learning Kanji
- Learning Grammar
- Other advanced areas

- Notepad & Pen
- Chart numbering the line order of symbols (Google helps)
- Flash Cards (Basic Internet example: http://www.realkana.com/)

Here's a preview of the materials I used to learn....

Before learning the symbols, I found it effective to learn the alphabet order first in romanji, write this down if you can - (You can find this via a simple Google search)
i.e. - a, i, u, e o | ka, ki, ku, ke, ko | etc etc.

When it comes to learning, or rather memorizing, I feel that writing has been the most effective tool for me - it's both how we as kids learnt to read and write our first languages, and used as a form of punishment in educational environments due to how effective a tool it was for reminding somebody what they did wrong, and to learn from that through repetition.

However, simply writing out any symbols won't necessarily have the best result!

I feel that effective learning also has a lot to do with how you choose to tackle the alphabet. Other mediums of educational material I saw has actually recommended learning Hiragana in an almost random order, using the method of "easiest to write first" - such as shi (し) and tsu (つ). This method might work for other people, but it proved very difficult for myself, so I decided to make a much more simplified method - line by line.

By this, I literally mean learning the kana one LINE at a time!

To begin, dedicate one page to each line of the Hiragana/Katakana alphabet.
- Page 1, Romanji table
- Page 2. A-O
- Page 3, KA-KO
- etc

Refer to your guide for writing the symbols and learn to write each of them out once. After you manage to write a symbol accurately and feel confident about it, circle it for future reference to help by leaving both a writing aid, and something for your brain to focus on, to show what is the correct way to write a given symbol.

Also, when practising to write each line, do not tackle a single symbol individually, but instead write them out sequentially....
A, I, U, E, O | repeat | repeat | repeat....

The effect of learning in this manner I feel allows easier memorization of symbols, as opposed to learning just one at a time - in other words, you're tasking your brain to learn one line, rather than one symbol. I recommend learning 5 symbols a day, some people can learn quicker, so it's really down to personal preference, but I feel that a new language should be digested, not rushed as it may be easier to forget in the long run.

Using the Flash Cards - After learning a line of hiragana, it is time to test your memory, and eventually your speed of recognising a symbol. In order to make this easier to learn at first, try to pair a Japanese word with each symbol.

Below is an example of words you may like to use...

あ| A - あくま|Akuma (Demon)
い| I - いえ| Ie (House)
う| U - うさぎ| Usagi (Rabbit)
え| E - えんぴつ| Enpitsu (Pencil)
お| O - おにぎり| Onigiri (Rice ball)

As you use flash cards to improve how quickly you recognise symbols, you even may like to try this small game my friend made back in 2012 called "Kana Battle Survivor" - a miniature game that has you 'battling' characters by memorizing the kana table as fast as possible.
(Game: http://kanabattle.comuv.com/)

I'll conclude the guide here for now. The main point is that if you want to learn Japanese, it will require a lot of practice, repetition and dedication. Yet it does not have to be boring, and feel like drill exercises. What matters is that you feel like you are learning, while enjoying, and learning more about Japan in the process.

Through this I hope you'll gain more from your experience playing Go! Go! Nippon! - I realise this may seem quite short, but I can assure there are sadly no shortcuts to learning Japanese, keep at it and that hard work shall show true results!

がんばって、みな！
Good luck, everyone!


Thank you MangaGamer for porting this release to Steam!

If I have missed anything obvious, or made any mistakes, please don't hesitate to let me know.
((this guide may be subject to format edits at any time))