How to practice putting things in gojuon (alphabetical) order?

Japanese
#1

Hi all, I’m a librarian and, as such, spend a lot of time putting things in alphabetical order and sorting through database results listed in alphabetical order. When interfacing with Japanese sources, though, it takes me a comparatively long time to think through what order they go in which slows things down considerably.

Are there any online tools to practice putting things in gojuon order? Or are there any ways that any of you can recommend for getting the order more strongly internalized? I’d like to do some work in Japan in a few years, but if I’m this slow at something so fundamental to libraries it seems kind of untenable even if my language skills are otherwise good.

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#2

During my first year in Japan I could be heard in most bookstores I frequented, muttering 「あかさたな、はまやらわん」to myself anytime I was searching for an author. While it brought amused, understanding smirks from those around me, I feel like it was mostly internalized after a few dozen trips to bookstores/libraries. I still sometimes whisper it instinctively, but these days it’s usually done in the time it takes to shift my eyes to/across the shelf, rather than something that takes any extra time.

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#3

I used to make study sheets of Japanese vocabulary in Google Docs. I would group the words by type (verbs, nouns+adjectives, other) and then drag the rows into alphabetical order. I could check my work by copy+pasting the rows into a spreadsheet and sorting the column there.

This was so I could print out the sheet and review it the old fashioned way a few times during the day. I eventually gave up on that and just learned to trust the SRS.

Probably not the most efficient study method, but it helped me slightly.

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#4

This is maybe a less deliberate form of practice than you are asking for but for me personally it became natural via using physical (native) dictionaries to look things up. Also using the index in books.

I think you’ll be able to pick it up fairly quickly regardless, I’m sure.

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#5

I have a weird mnemonic which doesn’t make much sense… but it works for me.

First, the あ-い-う-え-お order stuck easily for me. And I know you always start with the あ-row. So I start with thinking ‘katana, but broken’: かさたな.
Next up, backwards Yamaha: はまや. Next I know that for some reason after the ‘incomplete’ や-row, there’s a full row and the only full row of characters left is ら, so that must be next. Which leaves わ、を、ん.

Like I said it doesn’t make much sense… but it works for me. You could even think of a red broken katana, since あか is red and that can lead you into the rest of it.

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