How long does it take to learn hiragana and katakana?

Most students read hiragana reliably after three to five weeks of daily short practice, and katakana takes longer despite being the same 46 sounds — it appears less often in beginner texts, and pairs like シ/ツ and ソ/ン are visually close. Voice sessions help by forcing recall at reading speed rather than recognition on a flashcard.

Can my child learn Japanese by voice if writing kanji is part of the class?

Speaking, listening, reading aloud, grammar, and kanji readings all work over voice. Handwriting stroke order does not — the tutor can explain and check the stroke sequence verbally and set practice, but the physical writing happens offline.

Is Japanese harder than Spanish or French for a ninth grader?

The pronunciation and verb system are more regular than Spanish, with no gender, no plural agreement, and only a handful of irregular verbs. The load sits in the writing systems and in getting used to verb-final sentences with particles, which is why the first year feels front-heavy compared to a Romance language.

We're partway through Genki chapter 8 and falling behind — can sessions match that?

Yes. Tell the tutor the textbook and chapter and sessions will use that chapter's vocabulary and grammar points, whether that's te-form requests, short-form casual speech, or the counters introduced in that unit.

Japanese I–II

High School (9-10) · World Languages

Japanese I–II covers the first two years of high school Japanese: the two kana syllabaries, the first 100–300 kanji, particle-marked sentence structure, and the polite -masu register used in most first- and second-year textbooks (Genki, Adventures in Japanese, Marugoto). Because Japanese puts the verb last and marks each noun's role with a particle rather than word order, most of the early work is retraining the ear and mouth to hold a sentence together differently than English does. Sessions are spoken, so you practise producing sentences aloud, get pronunciation corrected in the moment, and drill kana and vocabulary recall by voice.

Start a session on Japanese I–II

What this covers

Reading and writing hiragana and katakana, including dakuten, combined sounds (きゃ/しゅ/ちょ), long vowels, and the small っ that doubles a consonant
Particles in context: は for topic, が for subject, を for direct object, に vs で for location and destination, へ, と, も, and the sentence-final ね/よ
Verb forms of the first two years: -masu / -masen / -mashita, the te-form and its uses (te imasu, te kudasai, te mo ii desu), dictionary form, and nai-form
い-adjectives and な-adjectives — how each attaches to a noun, becomes past, and becomes negative (たかくない vs しずかじゃない)
Kanji introduced in years 1–2: stroke order, radicals, and why one character has both on'yomi and kun'yomi readings depending on the word
Practical spoken tasks: self-introduction (じこしょうかい), asking prices and times, counters (〜つ, 〜まい, 〜ほん, 〜にん), giving directions, and describing daily schedules

Where learners get stuck

Treating は and が as interchangeable subject markers: English has one grammatical slot where Japanese has two functions — topic and subject. Textbooks introduce は first as 'is', so learners read わたしは as 'I am' and then cannot explain 「わたしはねこがすきです」. Working through pairs of sentences aloud, where changing the particle changes the emphasis, is what makes the split click.
Saying 'is' twice or leaving です out of adjective sentences: Learners map たかい to 'expensive' rather than 'is-expensive'. That produces たかいです in the present (fine) but then たかいでした in the past instead of たかかったです, because they conjugate です rather than the adjective. The な-adjective pattern, where です really does carry the tense, reinforces the wrong habit.
Mixing up に and で for place: Both translate as 'in' or 'at'. The rule — で for where an action happens, に for where something exists or where motion arrives — is easy to state and hard to apply under time pressure, so 「がっこうにべんきょうします」 slips out. It needs repeated production, not more explanation.

What a session looks like

A session runs on voice. You'll be asked to read kana and short sentences aloud, and pronunciation is corrected immediately — long vowels, the double consonant, and the Japanese r are the usual targets. Grammar is drilled through substitution: the tutor gives a prompt in English or Japanese and you produce the sentence, then the tutor changes one element (tense, particle, politeness) and you produce it again. Kanji work is done by reading and by talking through radicals and readings, with written stroke-order practice assigned for between sessions. If you bring a textbook chapter, a quiz you got back, or a speaking assessment prompt, the session is built around that vocabulary set.

Helpful to know first

No prior Japanese needed for the Japanese I material — kana are taught from the first character
For Japanese II material, you should be able to read hiragana and katakana without a chart and know -masu form verbs and basic particles
A way to write by hand for kanji and kana stroke practice, since that part cannot be done by voice alone
A copy of whichever textbook your class uses, so vocabulary and kanji lists match what you're graded on

Questions

How long does it take to learn hiragana and katakana?: Most students read hiragana reliably after three to five weeks of daily short practice, and katakana takes longer despite being the same 46 sounds — it appears less often in beginner texts, and pairs like シ/ツ and ソ/ン are visually close. Voice sessions help by forcing recall at reading speed rather than recognition on a flashcard.
Can my child learn Japanese by voice if writing kanji is part of the class?: Speaking, listening, reading aloud, grammar, and kanji readings all work over voice. Handwriting stroke order does not — the tutor can explain and check the stroke sequence verbally and set practice, but the physical writing happens offline.
Is Japanese harder than Spanish or French for a ninth grader?: The pronunciation and verb system are more regular than Spanish, with no gender, no plural agreement, and only a handful of irregular verbs. The load sits in the writing systems and in getting used to verb-final sentences with particles, which is why the first year feels front-heavy compared to a Romance language.
We're partway through Genki chapter 8 and falling behind — can sessions match that?: Yes. Tell the tutor the textbook and chapter and sessions will use that chapter's vocabulary and grammar points, whether that's te-form requests, short-form casual speech, or the counters introduced in that unit.