basics of written japanese--help!

[valery]

I am the newest of the newbies, I hope my question is not too ridiculous.

It has not become clear to me exactly how the written language is organized. I understand that hiragana, katakana and kanji are written all together. I need specifics about the role of the kanji characters...we learn to recognize the kanji and the hiragana tells us how to say it? or what? is the hiragana merely phonetic?

any info appreciated.

[QuackingShoe]

Explore this wikipedia entry thoroughly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system
Then go to each of the subpages listed at the top, for kanji, hiragana, and katakana. You'll have a fair idea afterward.

[valery]

thank you so much! changed my world! i never thought of wikipedia...

[QuackingShoe]

Yeah, you'd be surprised. There's actually a decent list of the major verb conjugations and common euphonic changes on there somewhere, as well as breakdowns of the grammar. I think I actually familiarized myself with all the basic conjugations with wikipedia open while reading manga.