Learning the Basics of How to Write Japanese

One potentially overwhelming, but fascinating aspect of Japanese is learning how to write Japanese. For a native English speaker whose only experience is with the 26 letter alphabet, Japanese writing appears totally cryptic. The bad news is that, yes, it is a completely different system. The good news is that it can be broken down into easy to learn parts and mastered with time and practice.

When you first begin to learn how to write Japanese, you will discover a number of writing systems. There are actually 3 different “alphabets” or character sets in the Japanese language – Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana, collectively known simply as Kana, consist of 46 characters each and Kanji consists of literally thousands, approximately 2000 of which are in common usage. Mastering Hiragana and Katakana will get you to a level of writing that would get you by, but to truly know written Japanese learning the Kanji will be necessary.

The two character sets that comprise the kana are 46 characters each and they each represent a single syllable. Native Japanese words are written with Hiragana and each of the 46 symbols is a single sound such as 'ta' or 'ne'. Hiragana symbols can be combined to make words that may otherwise be expressed by a single Kanji symbol. Non native, foreign, or borrowed words are written in Katakana such as a Western name or a non-Japanese company or brand name (i.e. 'Google'). The kana sets each represent the same syllables. In other words, there is a Hiragana symbol as well as a Katakana symbol for 'sa'. When first learning how to write Japanese, the two kana sets can be differentiated by the style in which they are written. Hiragana is generally more curvy and Katakana is more angular.

Eventually, in order to really know how to write Japanese and especially to read it, you will have to learn some of the Kanji characters. Japanese Kanji characters were adapted from Chinese writing thousands of years ago. Of the thousands of Kanji out there (over 5000) the Japanese government has designated approximately 2000 Kanji characters as "the essential Kanji", so that is how many you will eventually need to know. Obviously that is still a big list of symbols to learn, but the average Japanese student doesn't know them all until graduation.

Often times you may not know the Kanji character for a word, but if you know how to write the word in Kana, it will be understood by any Japanese reader. Romaji is extremely helpful if you do not know how to write Japanese, as it is a system of spelling out Japanese words with the Latin alphabet. Romaji has become so common that it is actually now taught in Japanese schools. One Romaji example would be writing out the Japanese word for thank you as 'arigato gozaimasu'. This is a great benefit to beginner Japanese language learners, as they need not know written Japanese to start learning how to speak Japanese. With a lot of practice many Japanese language students find that learning written Japanese can be just as enjoyable as learning to speak it.

Article Source: http://www.largedirectory.info

Visit Japanese Language Now for articles and tips on how to write Japanese.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated