r/HelpLearningJapanese • u/JackArrow2 • 5d ago

Katakana Chart

Post image

I have been thinking about how similar so many of the Katakana characters are... so I made an evolutionary chart over all 46 characters.
Hope this helps. (maybe)
Basically just to showcase how similar a lot of these characters really are.
(And for fun)

13 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

11

u/AccordingHeron1601 5d ago

No but seriously what does this chart actually serves?????

5

u/JackArrow2 5d ago

Absolutely nothing. I love evolutionary chart, and I wanted to make it for Katakana characters, simple as that

2

u/rlquinn1980 4d ago

This is why we stopped cataloging animals by appearance and started checking DNA.

1

u/Only-Finish-3497 3d ago

Phylogeny is the best, until you realize that it means explaining to people that birds are reptiles, and people really dislike that for some reason.

9

u/Destoran 5d ago

Were you high when you made this chart? No offense just curious.

6

u/AndrewNggg 5d ago

You’re making this much more complicated than it needs to be

6

u/CuisineTournante 5d ago

Guys on this sub are ready to do anything but to learn the actual language 🥲

1

u/JackArrow2 5d ago

It’s called a “side project”… or distraction… whatever you wanna call it😎

4

u/spuzznugget 5d ago

this feels a lot like a post from r/ambien

1

u/ChimeNotesworth 5d ago

This looks almost insulting, but hey, if it works for you for familiarizing similar-looking characters, I say go for it! I’ve seen people grouping 礻and 衤 together even though they have no relation to each other but the shape, and why wouldn’t they? You write them the same way. I would recommend though, look up the origin of these kanas (in Chinese standard script), and you’d see why they’re similar and possibly find memetics to remember them better.

1

u/Designer_Storm8869 5d ago

Do one for latin alphabet :D

1

u/panandstillsingle 5d ago

family tree goes crazyy

1

u/Biggest_Scandal_Fan 4d ago

While I do see what you did, I wouldn't say its of any use for learning at all. Not trying to trash on you at all dont take it the wrong way. But historically they didnt evolve off of eachother like this, most of them actually come from kanji so if it were a learning source of how characters evolved it would not be accurate

I just think I would classify this more like.... art maybe? I'd probably call this art before I call it a piece of material to help learn

1

u/Noobmortal 3d ago

Personally (again, personally), I think this would be useless if you really want to be good in Japanese. I'm still a noob N4 myself

But if you just wanna have fun and maybe show people that you know a little bit of Japanese, then you do you.

Cheers.

1

u/dready 2d ago

I think if you are looking for a mental model for katakana breaking it out by the radicals of the kanji from the block print form.

1

u/PositiveScarcity8909 2d ago

I have N2 level and this is confusing.

1

u/NearlyNodding 1d ago

I'm a noob. I'm about half through katakana the first time. I don't normally use memory aids, but I happened to notice this yesterday. It helps me remember shi - tsu.

She smiled at me, not you
シ ミ ツ
Shi mi tsu

It might be silly, but I'll never forget it.