Japanese Writing System
Introduction
The Japanese writing system is made of of three character scripts: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana and katakana, collectively called kana, are relatively easy to learn and memorize. However, learning to read the kanji characters will take significant effort, time and planning.
Kana Characters
Kana is an umbrella term for the hiragana and katakana character sets that are used to write Japanese along with the kanji characters. Each character set has very different roles and functions in the Japanese language. Furthermore, each kana character represents an individual syllable sound in the Japanese language.
Each character set consists of 46 basic characters (5 vowels and 40 consonant-vowl pairs, 1 nasal sound). A subset of these characters can be combined with special markings known as dakuten and handakuten marks to represent another 25 syllables in Japanese. Additionally, some characters can be combined to represent another 36 syllables in Japanese bringing the total number of characters to 107.
Hiragana Functions
Hiragana has many important functions and roles in the Japanese language. Some of these include, but are not limited to:
1) Writing some native Japanese words, such as かわいい (kawaii), まだ (mada), and すごい (sugoi)
2) Writing verb and adjective endings and conjugations
3) Writing Japanese particles
4) Writing the phonetic readings of kanji characters
Katakana Functions
While not as common or useful as hiragana, katakana still has some important functions in the Japanese language including, but not limited to:
1) Writing foreign words or loan words derived from other languages, such as
2) Writing proper nouns for people, places and things from outside Japan
3) Stylizing text in video games, manga, and magazines
Kanji Characters
Kanji is a logographic script originally introduced from China in the 5th century. Unlike kana characters, kanji characters can have multiple readings. Furthermore we can combine multiple kanji characters to form many unique words.
The Joyo Kanji is the set of 2136 kanji characters that all Japanese people learn throughout their secondary education and is considered necessary to be literate in Japanese. Beyond the Joyo Kanji, another roughly 1000 kanji characters are in common use in Japanese print and digital media.
Romaji
Romaji is a system for transcribing the Japanese language using the roman alphabet, which consists of the same letters found in English and many European languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, among others. While romaji is not used in Japanese writing, it can be a useful tool for people studying the Japanese language.
There is no universal standard for transcribing Japanese as multiple systems of romaji have been developed and are in common use with their own specific rules and methods. This can be confusing for new Japanese language learners that might be familiar with one system, but not another.
Despite this, romaji can be a useful tool for studying Japanese with some basic knowledge of the most common systems.
Romaji Functions
Romaji has a couple useful functions including:
1. inputting Japanese characters with a keyboard using the roman alphabet
2. Transcribing the Japanese language in a format that is more easily understood by non-native speakers of Japanese, such as for people living and working in Japan as well as people studying the Japanese language
Summary
Kana (hiragana and katakana)
Each character represent a single syllable in the Japanese language
Hiragana Functions
Useful for writing 1) adjectives/verb endings and conjugations, 2) native Japanese words, 3) phonetic readings of kanji characters
Katakana Functions
Useful for writing 1) foreign or loan words derived from other languages, 2) pronouns of people, places and things from outside Japan, 3) sylized text in multimedia
Kanji Characters
Kanji characters have multiple readings depending on which characters they are combined with
Joyo Kanji set consists of 2136 characters considered necessary to be literate in Japanese
Romaji
System of transcribing Japanese using the roman alphabet
Useful for helping foreigners learn Japanese, and entering Japanese using a keyboard
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