I'm trying to memorize Hiragana. I have learned well a part of the phonetic alphabet but there are a few characters left that I can't force my mind to remember. Maybe this is happening because some sounds are more common than others. I'm practicing by writing sentences with familiar words. I also try to listen to J-pop songs and search for familiars words in the song lyrics. Most often I can't encounter any because my vocabulary is very limited at this point. This gives me incentive to translate the songs on my own and learn new words, which I find both interesting and educational. I wish I could remember the words from the textbook in the same easy way...