Reading Japanese

When I was in elementary school, every Saturday, I had to go to Japanese School.  I thought it was such an injustice to have to go to school on a Saturday!  We learned to read and write hiragana.   Hiragana is a set of Japanese characters that were usually taught first when I was growing up since it is simpler to read and write.   My mom was taught katakana first, which is set of characters used for non-Japanese words.  I also was taught katakana but I think because I was taught hiragana first, I know those characters better and my mom said she knows katakana better.  Kanji is the more complicated characters, which I know a few, but not enough to read and write.

I have relatives that live in Japan and when they write my family letters, they write in hiragana since it is simpler for us to read.  Since I can read hiragana better than my mom,  I read the letter out loud in hiragana but I don't really understand what I am reading, but my mom understands the Japanese so between the two of us we can understand the letter.  I was talking to my cousin the other day and she said she does the same thing with her mom.

Just find it interesting to be able to read a letter, but not necessarily understand its meaning.