Learning Japanese-Hiragana-SU and SHI

Why a panda picture for SU? I'm getting old.

Learning Japanese-Hiragana-SO and SE

Learning Japanese-Hiragana-O and KU

Learning Japanese-Hiragana-KO and KE

I couldn't think of an easy picture for "ke". An old man in a manga I used to read years ago cackled a lot. The sound effect was "kekekekekekekeke".

Learning Japanese-Hiragana-KI and KA

Probably should explain a little bit about these.

Hiragana is one of the three Japanese alphabets* It's syllabic, which means each character represents a sound. There are 46 characters and this alphabet used for native Japanese words. There's loads of resources online if you're interested in learning more.

"Ka" is an audible question mark-which can be difficult in conversation. If you're a beginner, you know when someone is asking you a question...but can have no clue what they're asking for.

For some reason I think that the "ka" character is supposed to represent a man flexing his arm muscles. Stuff like that is why this alphabet is for my reference only.

*or four, if you include romaji-English letters.

Learning Japanese-Hiragana-KI and KA

Learning Japanese-Hiragana-U and E

Learning Japanese-Hiragana-A and I

I've been learning Japanese for a while and haven't done much self-directed art work. I am hopeless at remembering languages so thought it would be good to combine the two. I had a stab at drawing some comic strips like the one below based on my old Japanese teacher, who made a pretty good cartoon. I think the alphabet works better and it's also quicker to produce.

Disclaimer: I'm not a calligrapher - or a reliable teacher of Japanese. My efforts at reproducing Japanese characters would make Fujiwara no Teika bite his brush in half.

Australia sketches-road trip from Cairns to Sydney

I didn't have time to do much drawing: too much driving. We did nearly 4000k in total.