Hiragana: The First Step

 Okay, so, as you may or may not know, Japanese has three different writing systems. Two are actually really simple, and one can make you want to quit learning Japanese, until you realise how useful they are (but more on that at a later date, so please don't quit learning!). These are Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. (In case you don't know, kanji's the difficult one).

The first thing anyone should know when learning Japanese is hiragana (aside from maybe some greetings that are taught in classes, but again, more on that later), both how to read and write them. This is the sort of thing that's probably best taught through demonstration, but can be learned just from a few pictures, so here they are:

This one's a fairly good chart (credit: Tofugu), because it shows the stoke order of each character. Stroke order is the exact reason why these are often better learned through demonstration (maybe that's what I can do on YouTube...). Personally, I've always found those lines and numbers quite confusing to follow, so even step-by-step pictures can be easier to learn from, but this chart will do for now. A general rule to go by, if you forget the stroke order (or have to write an unfamiliar kanji) is to write from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. I'm fairly sure this is because Japanese was traditionally written with calligraphy brushes, and so it was easier to write this was, but regardless, just remember that rule and you'll be okay for the most part (it's not a rule so much as a convention).

Now, pronunciation. Very important, so don't forget it! Here's a little mnemonic to help: (Mnemonics are brilliant when learning Japanese, trust me!)
Ah (a)
we (i)
soon (u)
get (e)
old (o)
Also, the "r" sound can prove to be tricky for some. When we were playing a game (Karuta, I think) in class, my Japanese teacher said "La, la, la!" (Find the "ら" card, not singing, don't worry!) and we all stood there like "what 'la'? There's not "l" in Japanese." Needless to say, it was confusing. The "r-" sound, in Japanese, isn't actually pronounced like the English "r". It's sort of a mix, but sometimes it can sound more like an "l". Here's a helpful Tofugu video in case you haven't mastered it (or didn't know it was pronounced funny): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2wzUuGm7yw (By the way, Tofugu is a brilliant website, so go check it out!)
"ん" and "を" are also strange ones. "を" (pronounced "o", not "wo", although that's how it's typed) is a particle (also more on those later, because some of the hiragana get more strange rules there), and is not found in actual words. "ん" is strange because it doesn't have a vowel sound, though that's about it (except for the fact that it can sometimes be an "m" sound, and it doesn't really matter, but if you see it in romaji (Japanese word, English letters) as "m", don't be confused).

Just in case you find that chart boring and want something a little more fun to work from (and learn a few basic words along the way!), here's a cute little chart I found. (credit: hiraganamama.wordpress)

One more thing. To make things a little more interesting, Japanese is full of blends. These are formed when a sound/character ending with -i (and only i-!) is combined with one of the y- sounds/characters. In these cases, the y- character is written in a smaller size. These are shown below: (credit at bottom of image)

Note that these are pronounced as a blend, not as separate syllables. For example, one I often have trouble pronouncing is "ryu". This is completely different from "riyu", which is pronounced as two separate syllables. Also kind of falling into the "blends" category (kind of!) are extended vowel sounds. When a vowel sound is "long", they are written (with hiragana, anyway) with "あ","い"or "う" after it (most of the time. Maybe I'll have to do a strange rules post at some point...).
あ--->あ
い--->い
う--->う
え--->い (sometimes え)
お--->う (sometimes お)
If you try pronouncing these, you'll probably hear why this is the case. 

You're also probably wondering what's with the shaded columns. Well, these are slightly modified sounds. Not all of the "basic" sounds are "modified", but a few are. The k-, s- and h- sounds all do this through the addition of what I know as "ten-tens" (I think this is the generally accepted term) or, in the special case of the h- sounds, "maru" (which I believe means something along the lines of "circle", but don't quote me). As you can see, with the addition of the "ten-ten", the k- sounds become g-, s- becomes z-, and h- becomes b-. With the "maru", h- becomes p-. These sounds can also be blended. The way I remembered the ways the h- sounds were modified was "the sheep says "ba"" (note the quotation marks which look like ten-tens), and "pa has a face" (because the circle's like a face, and "pa" is as word for "dad"). They're ridiculous, I know, but it helped while I learned them.

Oh, and while I remember, there are just a couple more things you should know. The characters "づ"
"ぢ" are very uncommon. I've only seen "づ" once, in the word for "continue", "つづく".

The other thing is that the "つ" character is sometimes written small as well. This is not blend. Basically it doubles the following consonant. "ちょっと" is a fairly common word, meaning "a little". Notice the small "つ". This makes it "chotto" instead of "choto", which is written as "ちょと" and I don't think is a word. It might be, but I've never seen it before and Google doesn't translate it as one, so... This is another concept better demonstrated, but I'll try to describe it. The way I generally think about it is that there's a small pause where the "つ" is. It's only a really small pause, and it kind of emphasises the next consonant. See? Hard to describe, but I hope it made some sort of sense.

The best way to learn the hiragana, I think, is just to practice them. Write them out a bunch of times (correct stroke order!) and read them (aloud and/or in your head) until you can recognise and read them by heart. Also, associate strange stories with them (those mnemonics again!). Here's a website. Not all of them are the same as what I was taught, but they'll still do :) http://japanese.gatech.edu/WebCTVista/JAPN1001/contents/Lesson02/hiragana/mnemonic-hiragana.html

Hopefully I've covered most of the stuff about hiragana in this post (comment if you think there's something I've missed, I sort of wrote this in a jumble).
Good luck! I'll see if I can do some videos with stroke order at some point. :)