Starting to read and write hiragana I've got a book I bought when I was on holiday to Japan a couple of years ago. I don't know what it's called because it is written entirely in Japanese and the title of it is written in symbols way too complicated for me to translate however I'll include a picture of it in this entry and maybe someone can tell me some more about it. From what I can tell it is a school text book for little children, probably those around 4 or 5 years old, used to teach them how to read and write hiragana. I thought it would make for a good learning resource due to its simply words, clear writing guides and use of lots of pictures, even though I was around 20 when I bought it (16 years older than the target market!) And for the most part it is. Each of the hiragana have a nice big picture of them with arrows next to it showing how to write it and space to practise. Best of all however, are the two or three example words that accompany each letter and the little pictures that got with them. For example: いぬ has a picture of a dog (inu). ねこ has a picture of a cat (neko). いか has a picture of a squid or an octopus or something (it's not an exact science!) (ika by the way) But there are still parts that confuse me. Single words are fine but I'm trying to translate the book from start to finish and have ran into trouble already translating sentences. Here are the few phrases I've done so far: ねくねく - neku neku - On the cover of the book, no idea what it means. ことばとぶんしよう - kotobato bunshiyou - The second 'to' and the 'yo' are smaller than the rest of the writing, I know this means something extra about holding the sound I believe? たつせいつーる - tatsuseitsu-ru - The 'tsu-ru' in this phrase is written in katakana, I've saw it several times in several places. したのつーるはじゆうにつかおう！- shitano tsu-ru hajiyuuni tsukaou! - Again the 'tsu-ru' is written in katakana. I've also spaced this phrase out where I think it should be, I'm not sure what made me think this was right but it looks right. ここどこ？- koko doko? - Where, here? - This is the only one I think I can translate. It means 'Where, here?' as if someone has been told where to put something but isn't sure where. So, it is turning out to be harder than I though, at least the phrases are. Google has been little help so far so hopefully some of my italki friends can be! Please let me know what these mean and how I got on. どもありがとうございます!