Kana Origins Card

The front shows each hiragana next to the kanji it was written from in cursive, such as 安 for あ, 以 for い and 加 for か, laid out in the usual gojūon table. The back shows the katakana, most of which are one piece of a kanji: 阿 for ア, 伊 for イ, 加 for カ. Seeing the kanji inside the kana makes the shapes easier to remember and look-alikes easier to tell apart. ン is the one exception: no one knows for sure where it came from.

It’s a download, and you can print it two ways. At home, use the Letter or A4 sheet: one fold-over card per page, printed single-sided at 100%. For a print shop, there’s a 4×6 in file with bleed for double-sided printing. A short how-to-print sheet walks through both.