Writing in Japanese

[overtonkate8896]

Could anyone point me in the direction of some lessons or answer a question for me?

I am learning my hiragana at the moment, then katakana (tried both together but found it harder to remember them all), I am eager to start practising using my new skill with my very limited vocab but am a bit unsure how to write. The question I have is how do you know when a one word ends and another starts? Are there no spaces in between words at all and when you come to the end of a page do you split a word or hit return before that happens?

Hope someone can shed some light on this for me

ありがとうごさいます

Ps my name is Kate do I spell it like this カテ or is it more complicated?

Thanks again

Hi,

Usually Japanese has no spaces other than as part of punctuation (。、). The transition from kanji to kana is what visually organises sentences.
If you are only using kana however you would add spaces like English. Usually only books for young children are written only using kana and they use spaces. Often particles are kept with the word they describe. The younger the reader the more it's broken up.
Here's an example on a web site using kana only
http://hukumusume.com/douwa/0_6/jap_pc/08/01.htm

JFBP is another example of how kana only can be organised
http://www.ajalt.org/kyozai/jbp_text/6-3k.html

There are times when kana only is used for adults as well. Some books have been written in kana only and military transmissions and telegrams were once only in katakana. The examples I've seen seem to have spaces between clauses rather than words. If you search for 電報 on google images you can find examples of telegrams.

[Belton]

I posted the above but it appears not from my account... Don't know what was going on there. Just in case here it is again.

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Hi,

Usually Japanese has no spaces other than as part of punctuation (。、). The transition from kanji to kana is what visually organises sentences.
If you are only using kana however you would add spaces like English. Usually only books for young children are written only using kana and they use spaces. Often particles are kept with the word they describe. The younger the reader the more it's broken up.
Here's an example on a web site using kana only
http://hukumusume.com/douwa/0_6/jap_pc/08/01.htm

JFBP is another example of how kana only can be organised
http://www.ajalt.org/kyozai/jbp_text/6-3k.html

There are times when kana only is used for adults as well. Some books have been written in kana only and military transmissions and telegrams were once only in katakana. The examples I've seen seem to have spaces between clauses rather than words. If you search for 電報 on google images you can find examples of telegrams.

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[overtonkate8896]

Thank you for your reply, very helpful

ありがとう　ございます