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by tjallingt 3147 days ago
Not a Japanese reader so i can't fill you in on what exactly the characters mean but they are characters from the Japanese katakana script. Katakana are generally used for loanwords and each character represents a sound:

ツ - tsu

シ - shi

ソ - so

ン - n

The reason these are difficult to learn is because the tiny differences in stroke angles (especially when handwritten) make it easy to confuse them.
3 comments
anw 3147 days ago
In college, my Japanese teacher told us that a lot of foreigners get these characters wrong, but if you know the stroke order then it's easy to see the difference.

シ (shi) is written top to bottom. You can see that all the starting points for the strokes line up vertically on the left. Also, the last stroke curves from the bottom-left to the upper-right.

ツ (tsu) is written from left to right. You can see that all the starting points for the strokes line up horizontally at the top. Also, the last stroke curves from the upper-right down to the bottom-left.

ン (n) lke 'shi' is written top to bottom. The starting points for the strokes line up vertically on the left. It also uses the same direction for the longer, final stroke as 'shi'.

ソ (so) like 'tsu' is written left to right. The starting points for the strokes line up vertically on the left. It also uses the same direction for the longer, final stroke as 'tsu'.

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anw 3146 days ago
Replying since I can't edit: The sentence for "ソ (so)" should read "The starting points for the strokes line up horizontally at the top".
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Jach 3147 days ago
All the kana are easy to learn if you use mnemonics, though I admit handwriting recognition might be harder. It took me a moment to recall some of the mnemonics themselves, eventually you just see them as they are... For tsu, I can think of Two sewing needles, for shi, I can think of "she has a funny face", for so it's one "so-ing" needle, for n it's a cyclops who can only say "nnnnnn". (https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/ and https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ have some great mnemonics to start out, I remember only altering a few.)
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kunimu 3147 days ago
On their own they don't mean anything, however the first four may appear and indeed do as multiple words on their own, or as part of other words. Japanese has many homophones.
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