As with Hieroglyphics, the best place to start is to learn the "alphabetic" signs - those signs representing a single consonant.  Since most people using these lessons will probably already be familiar with Hieroglyphic writing, the following table gives correspondences between the Hieratic characters, and the equivalent Hieroglyphs (from which they are derived).  Since Hieratic was written from right to left, the signs (both Hieratic and Hieroglyphic) are shown facing right as they would in actual texts.
 
 

Hieratic	Value	Hieroglyph		Hieratic	Value	Hieroglyph
	A				x
	i				X
	a				s
	w				s
	b				S
	p				q
	f				k
	m				g
	n				t
	r				T
	h				d
	H				D

 

The Hieratic form of  was originally , which you will notice corresponds with the other two bird signs  and , however this was gradually replaced by the sign given in the table above.

There was also a second form of  in Hieratic:  which was taken over into Hieroglyphic as .
 
Reading Hieratic does take practice of course, and most especially since some signs are rather easily confused.  You can use Exercise 1A and Exercise 1B to help you become familiar with some of the signs.

 

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Lesson 2