A learning log · started 25 July 2026
Japanese & Arabic, side by side
I am learning Japanese from zero — I could not read a single character in July 2026. Alongside it I am filling a gap I have carried for years: I read and pronounce Arabic fluently but never understood it. Every Japanese sentence I learn gets translated into Arabic too, so one set of sentences teaches two languages.
1.Lessons
| # | Lesson | Covers | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The first 25 hiragana, and a classroom in two languages | あ, か, さ, た, な rows with animated stroke order, audio and example words in Japanese, English and Arabic; 16 classroom phrases in all three | 18 min |
| 2 | Completing the hiragana: the last twenty-one | は, ま, や, ら, わ rows and ん, finishing the 46-character chart; example words in Japanese, English and Arabic; the four characters that break the pattern | 14 min |
| 3 | Forty-six shapes, forty-six stories | A mnemonic for every one of the 46 characters, and a drill that shows them one at a time with no romaji and no audio — a miss gives you the story and the words from lessons 1 and 2 that contain the character | 12 min |
| 4 | Eighty words, two letters each | Eighty real words built only from the 46 characters, grouped by meaning, in Japanese, English and Arabic; the mora — why every kana is one beat — and a drill that runs in three directions, including straight from Japanese into Arabic | 15 min |
| 5 | Two strokes and a circle | The 25 marked characters — が, ざ, だ, ば and ぱ rows — each shown beside the character it is built from, with stroke order; why the mark means voicing; the three irregulars; a drill that mixes marked and unmarked together; and 73 words the marks unlock, in Japanese, English and Arabic | 14 min |
| 6 | Four stems, thirty-two questions | Every Japanese question word — who, what, where, which, how, why, how much, what time — shown as four opening sounds rather than a list of thirty-two; the こそあど grid that generates six of them from one pattern; how かん turns “what time” into “how many hours”; when なに becomes なん; all of them in a single paragraph to recite; and eleven real questions in Japanese, English and Arabic | 17 min |
| 7 | Three small letters, thirty-three sounds | The small ゃ ゅ ょ — why only the i column takes them, why two characters make one beat, and the four common pairs where a character's size alone decides the word; a tappable chart of all 33 combinations and 45 words in Japanese, English and Arabic | 14 min |
| 8 | Twenty-five new shapes, no new sounds | The first 25 katakana — the same five rows as day 1 in the other script, which of them are genuinely cousins of their hiragana and which only look like it, the シ/ツ trap and the rule that settles it, a recognition drill whose wrong answers are drawn from exactly those traps, and 75 loanwords in Japanese, English and Arabic | 18 min |
| 9 | The last twenty-one, and the kanji still showing through | The rest of the katakana — how little was cut away from the source kanji in this half and why that causes its own errors, the ソ/ン rule promised on day 8, which characters Japanese children actually get wrong (measured, not guessed), ヲ and why it is on the chart but not in use, the long-vowel ー, the 25 marked characters — including why the パ row was the hardest in hiragana and is the easiest here — and the small kana: ャ ュ ョ filling the exact holes the hiragana chart could not, the silent beat of ッ, and the ファ ティ ジェ spellings katakana invented for sounds Japanese does not have | 32 min |
| 10 | Seven planets, twelve numbers | The calendar, and the first kanji in the course — the seven weekdays and the planets they are named after, why learning 火星 gives you 火曜日 free, how Japan knew the names of the week for a thousand years before it rested on one, the twelve months as plain numbers with the three that keep their classical readings, the same characters read as a date or as a duration, the native numbers that survive only in the days of the month, and the mirror Arabic holds up to all of it — numbered days and borrowed months | 20 min |
| 11 | Two ways to say every person | Introducing yourself — and the first chapter that is simply a list of words, so it is taught as a walk through all forty-two of them. Why nearly every person-word here comes in a plain and a polite pair, the one rule that covers all of them (the polite form never points at you), the four endings that go on a name and the two that build five of the nine occupations, 〜じん as the Arabic nisba exactly, twelve kanji that between them spell twenty-nine words, why は is read wa, and the sentence that gains a word in Japanese and loses one in Arabic | 22 min |
| 12 | This, that, and that over there | Pointing at things — six words that turn out to be two rows of the grid drawn in lesson 6, so the questions were learned first and the answers arrive now. The one decision that separates them (れ stands alone, の needs a noun), この as こ plus the linking particle already known, why そ is the listener's territory rather than a middle distance, the Arabic middle rank that is marked with the literal word you, forty-two objects walked through one room, and why a one-mora word needs a kanji to say which of five things it is | 20 min |
| 13 | How much, and which floor | Places, floors and prices — two more rows of the same grid, so four of its seven are now taught, and why the ちら row is the polite one. Arabic building its place words from the same two pieces as its demonstratives, a building walked floor by floor, and the chapter's one idea that has to be understood rather than memorised: Japanese groups digits in fours, so 万 is a column and not a word, ten thousand is いちまん, and the sounds collide when a number meets a counter | 22 min |
| 14 | The working day, and the clock | The first six verbs — taught as fixed ます shapes, with the conjugation system left closed on purpose — and the clock that lesson 6 asked about three weeks before the course could answer. Japanese states a time biggest unit first and never reorders; the hours take no sound changes at all and the minutes take the same two rules chapter 13 found, with a maru where that chapter had a tenten. Plus から and まで, a five-day window Japanese names with five single words, and a telephone call. Three languages finally agree on something: 午前, قَبْلَ الظُّهْرِ and Latin ante meridiem all say before noon | 22 min |
| 15 | Numbers, and the two ways of counting | Both numeral series — the borrowed いち に さん that does all the arithmetic, and the native ひとつ ふたつ that is already a counter and stops at ten. Every number to nine digits, in a box you can type into and hear. Why 一 is silent below 万 and compulsory above it; why four, seven and nine each have two names and neither is a sound change. And the one rule chapters 13 and 14 were each seeing half of: read the number's last mora and you know what it will do to whatever follows — 2, 5, 7 and 9 do nothing, ever. Arabic solves the same problem from the opposite end, by breaking the noun | 24 min |
| 16 | Three verbs, and every way to go | The first verbs of motion — いきます away from the speaker, きます toward it, かえります home to base — still as fixed ます shapes, and this sheet gets all three group markers right, including the classic 帰る trap. Nine ways to travel with lesson 6's で finally answering なんで; the three-speed train ladder 普通・急行・特急 and the homophones a station will throw at you (不通 is also ふつう, and it means the train is not coming); 〜番線, a ninth counter the counter sheet's rule clears without a single change; and the relative-time grid of lesson 10, revisited in kanji so the system shows — 先・今・来 across 週・月・年, with the year row breaking it twice | 20 min |
| 17 | Eleven verbs, and a day to spend them on | The first verbs with objects — eat, drink, smoke, watch, listen, read, write, buy, photograph, do and meet, still as fixed ます shapes, with all eleven group markers right for the first time. を moves from a fixed phrase to a working frame — noun, を, verb, and the verb always last, the mirror image of Arabic's verb-first order. Rice as the word for every meal and the 朝・昼・晩 pattern that names all three; the homophone problem arriving in the verbs (買う buys, 飼う keeps a pet); the sheet's 取ります corrected to 撮ります; the one verb that points with に exactly as Arabic points with بِ; and five ready-made replies to an invitation the course cannot ask yet | 22 min |
| 18 | Give and take, and both halves of the door | Nine verbs, six of them in matched pairs — give and receive, lend and borrow, teach and learn — one event named from both ends, mirrored in Arabic by derived-form pairs from a single root (أَعَارَ／اِسْتَعَارَ). The sheet's two slips taught correctly: 借ります is group II, and the fax needs its small ァ. Homophone triples on the plainest nouns (はし, かみ), the course's first true homograph pair (花 against lesson 4's 鼻), the katakana desk with its clipped and brand-name loans, the humble-and-honorific family (ちち／おとうさん), and — for the first time — a whole conversation: both halves of a Japanese doorway, from knock to teacup | 23 min |
| 19 | Two families of describing words | The adjectives arrive, pre-sorted by the sheet itself: ten wearing a printed ［な］, twenty-two ending in 〜い — and the bracket, not the ear, decides (きれい ends in い and is still a ［な］ word). Opposites in pairs and one word with two (たかい — price and height, each with its own opposite); temperature split by touch in Japanese and by heat in Arabic (حَارّ／سَاخِن); やさしい as two adjectives at once; the 〜が、〜 hinge; the famous five as practice subjects; and the visit that chapter 18 opened, politely closed — そろそろ しつれいします | 24 min |
2.Grammar lessons
The teacher's own grammar sheets, in their own numbered track. A day lesson brings new words; a grammar lesson brings none — it names the rules those words have been running on all along. Each rule is taught the way the sheet states it, mirrored in Arabic, with audio on every example sentence.
| # | Grammar lesson | Covers | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Six rules, one sentence | The six grammar points of 第1課, each an operation on わたしは がくせいです: the 〜は 〜です frame and why は reads wa; the four shapes of です against Arabic's لَيْسَ and كَانَ; か at the end of a question against هَلْ at the start; も replacing は where Arabic adds أَيْضًا; の as the mirror image of the iḍāfa; and 〜さん, which is given and never claimed | 16 min |
| 2 | Pointing, and the shapes of an answer | The grammar of 第2課 — chapter 12's machine, finally named: これ・それ・あれ stand alone and take は, この・その・あの grab a noun (one seam through the whole こそあど chart); the four ways to say yes and four to say no, running on one كَذٰلِكَ affirmed and negated; the either/or question that refuses はい, mirrored by Arabic's question-only أَمْ; の holding a dropped noun's place; and the そう triangle — そうです・そうですか・そうですね. Five sheet slips corrected, all small kana or lost length — including the card that became a corner | 15 min |
3.Reading chapters
A different kind of page, kept out of the numbered lessons on purpose. A lesson is built from a day's material — reordered, cut, explained. A reading chapter is a printed page reproduced: the textbook's own lines, in its order, with its own furigana. Every line has a button that reads it aloud and a button that opens the English and the Arabic, and both start closed.
| # | Chapter | Covers | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Minna no Nihongo I, lessons 1–3 | Ninety-three lines — the 文型 patterns, 例文 examples and the three 会話 dialogues of the book's first three lessons: introducing yourself, saying whose things are whose, and asking where something is and what it costs. Every line in Japanese, English and Arabic with audio in both spoken languages; the notes flag the five lines whose furigana does not match how the line is actually said | 25 min |
4.Practice
Routines, not lessons: nothing on them is new. They exist to keep what the lessons taught from slipping away, and they are the only pages here that remember anything about how you did — in your own browser, never sent anywhere.
| # | Routine | Covers | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flash Cards | All 413 words of lessons 10 to 19 in one deck, plus the 20 counter readings that change — flip-cards asked from whichever side comes up, thirty a session, dealt fresh every time you load the page. It weights the words you keep missing, and builds a trouble-words session out of them | 15 min |
| 2 | The Reading Plan | Ten minutes of reading fluency a day, all steered from one page: re-read the course's own Reading 1 until it runs at the audio's speed, then climb Tadoku's 76 free graded readers level by level — every book linked, most with read-aloud audio, each ticked off here as you finish it. Tadoku's four golden rules, the gate for moving up a level, and where to ask when a line stays hard | 10 min/day |
5.Reference sheets
The compressed version of what each lesson taught — made to print and keep beside the paper.
- Hiragana stroke chart — all 46 characters with every stroke numbered in writing order, the shapes that get confused with each other, and every example word glossed in English and Arabic.
- Katakana stroke chart — all 71 katakana (46 basic, 25 marked) with every stroke numbered, each one beside the hiragana that shares its sound, which pairs come from the same ancient kanji and which do not, and the shapes that get mistaken for each other — ranked by a writing study of 430 Japanese children rather than by the usual lists.
- Tenten and maru — the 25 marked characters, each beside the one it is built from, with stroke order and the three that do not follow the rule; plus the 73 words the marks unlock.
- Yōon — the small ゃ ゅ ょ — all 33 contracted sounds in both scripts with a common word for each, the three rows whose romaji drops its y, the pairs where size decides the word, and the 45 words the small kana unlock. The two charts have different holes, and between them only one cell is empty in both.
- Two-kana word list — eighty words that are exactly two characters long and use nothing but the 46 basic hiragana, in nine meaning groups, with the Arabic for each.
- Question words — the thirty-two interrogatives in four stems, the こそあど grid six of them come from, the point-against-stretch grid that かん builds, the なに/なん rule, and eleven ready-made questions in all three languages.
- The calendar — the seven days beside the planets they are named after, all twelve months in Japanese and in both Arabic systems, every date from the 1st to the 31st with the four that never regularised, and the twelve old lunisolar month names.
- One day, every word — all 230 words taught so far, walked through as a single day in fourteen scenes, each word appearing exactly once. The question words are the joints between scenes, which is what makes them stick.
- Counters and their sound changes — all eight counters taught so far (months, days, age, floors, yen, hours, minutes, people) from 1 to 10, every euphonic change flagged and tappable to hear. Led by the question that predicts the whole table: does the counter start on a vowel, a voiced sound, or a voiceless one? — because only the voiceless ones ever change. Read from the other side, four numbers never change anything at all.
- Classroom phrasebook — the 16 phrases in Japanese and Modern Standard Arabic, with audio, and the four grammar patterns that generate most of them.
6.How this works
My teacher hands out lecture notes. Each day's notes become one lesson here — not a copy of them, but the same material with the things a sheet of paper cannot do: stroke-order animation you can replay, audio in both languages, and — where a thing is only learned by being asked — a drill that asks.
The Arabic is Modern Standard Arabic with full harakat. That is deliberate: decoding the script has never been my problem, so the vowel marks cost me nothing and remove every ambiguity about meaning — which is the part I am actually here for.
A note on the audio
Every 🔊 button uses your own browser's speech voices — nothing is downloaded and no server is involved. If a button looks faded, your device has no voice installed for that language. On macOS you can add one under System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System Voice → Manage Voices. Synthesised speech is close but not perfect; for Japanese pitch accent, trust NHK's recordings over it.
7.Credits
Stroke-order data comes from KanjiVG by Ulrich Apel, used under CC BY-SA 3.0; the stroke data reused on this site stays under that licence. The little story silhouettes in lesson 3 are from Phosphor Icons (MIT), with a few drawn here to match. Word readings, glosses and commonness tags come from JMdict/EDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0), reached through Jisho.org. Mnemonics and confusion pairs informed by Tofugu. Arabic forms checked against Madinah Arabic and Desert Sky.