vanandrew wrote:

…I’d suggest just writing out the hiragana, all of them, to begin with… I think you can learn them fairly quickly that way.

Yeah, I feel like I’m starting to RECOGNIZE the characters decently, out of the selection of all the characters, with Hiragana drag-and-drop. but it’s not quite the same as being able to represent them from nothing.
Not just because of the drawing skill involved, but also recall of what they actually do look like.

(I got 1m:12s this morning with the first 6 columns, but the na- and ha- columns are still pretty rusty to actually remember each symbol. It’s more I can find them amongst the list/selection of all basic hiragana fairly quickly, once I’ve eliminated the first 4 columns – and because the font never changes on Hiragana drag-and-drop)

I’ve found a few good sites for writing practice sheets:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/pdf/hiragana_trace_sheet.pdf
http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_writing.html
http://happyfu-fu.com/hiroshiandsakura/ls_hiragana_stroke.html

Hi Vanandrew. Thanks for the reply :)

Thanks for the blessing!! Yes I am enthusiastic! YAY!!

I’m a Kiwi, from the beautiful city of Christchurch (now I just hope none of my friends read this post until I’m ready to surprise them!)

Yes, you are correct, I now think of it mostly as writing hiragana.

But, coming from just English, for me at least, the languages with a vastly different-looking alphabet, especially Japanese/Korean/Chinese characters, seem like a hybrid of writing and drawing.

And similarly/especially, the kanji characters look like simple (or sometimes, not-so-simple, pictures).

Even just in general, learning to write new characters in any language (or the same characters with the other hand) is very much like a form of/complexity of drawing to me. (I have been trying to learn to write ambidexterously in English).

Right now I can correctly match (without mistakes) the first 20 characters (a-, ka-, sa-, ta-, columns) in hiragana drag-and-drop in under two minutes, easily enough (with some thought). My last two attempts were each under a minute and a half (but I’m yet to see whether I can maintain that!) :)

My pronunciation is okay-ish maybe, I had most of them correct as best as my untrained ears could hear, last week… but I need to keep practicing ongoing.

I have no idea how to type the hiragana. Except install something called an IME from MS or Google (the Google one I have downloaded, but not yet installed).

My writing I’ve only done a little practice on, so I need to do more.
I know Koichi doesn’t really believe in writing anymore, so doesn’t teach it, but I want to learn it anyway.

I actually want to be able to read and WRITE any new language(s) that I learn – much more than I want to be able to type them – although typing IS probably useful & seems to be an important part of the learning process, on WaniKani and Lang-8 at least (& probably more)!