Kanji and Kana

[laughinghyena21]

this is going to sound like a very nub question, but whta are the main difference between Kanji and Kana?

I notice that they are alot alike, but some characters are different from one another. Is one meant for reading and the other writing? yes I know, nub.

i want to practice writing the characters before typing them in. so it would help me which one is which.

Once again, doumo.


Chansu

[djadams]

Kanji are characters that were taken from the Chinese a long time ago.
Over the years some, not all, of the Kanji have been formatted for Japanese use.
Essentially Kanji is used to describe verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. in Japanese writing. Kana on the other hand is used for particles, to determine past and present of a verb, and more. Kana was developed by the Japanese and have no relation to Kanji what so ever. Both are used for writing and reading.
These is a section on this site that explains the difference between Kanji and Kana but I don't remember where it is. When I find it I'll post it.

[Airth]

You could try thinking of the Kana as the alphabet of Japanese - hiragana representing lower case and katakana upper case, in a funky kind of way. Or perhaps it's better to think of katakana as italics. Anyway, they describe the individual sounds in Japanese. The kanji on the other hand are sort of like words, or parts of words. And so you can write out the sounds of the kanji using kana, but not (really) the other way round. Well, start learning and you'll soon work it out.

Kana was developed by the Japanese and have no relation to Kanji what so ever.

I agree with most of what you said, djadams, but I can't go along with this statement; they have quite a close relationship in my opinion. For example, just look at how the following hiragana were developed from kanji:

安 into あ
幾 into き
奈 into な
美 into み
波 into は

[annie]

Kana was developed by the Japanese and have no relation to Kanji what so ever. Both are used for writing and reading.

As Airthさん　mentioned as well, the kana were developed directly from kanji. If you ever see the flourescent orange Intermediate Kanji book there's a whole table there. and here's one on the internet http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_hiragana.htm

Interesting to note, back in the day, only men learned kanji and women used hiragana. Not surprisingly Japan's first novelists were women.

[laughinghyena21]

thank you Mina. I guess in time I will figure out the two when I get more deep into it. just want to find out which one is which, so when I start writing, I make sure I am doing it correctly.

Once again

Doumo

Chansu

[djadams]

When I mentioned that the Kana is not related to Kanji I meant it as most of the time Kana is used as particles, show past or present, etc. and not as words to represent an object or verb. Most of the time these are in Kanji and not Kana, there are exceptions of course and it seems Japanese is full of them.

[Psy]

Getting into the finer details is nice, but I think the posts so far could be confusing to beginners. Here's a simple breakdown:

HIRAGANA - ひらがな
- curvy and simple
- PHONETIC -- they represent sounds
- Japanese words & grammar are written with it

KATAKANA - カタカナ
- blocky and simple
- PHONETIC - they represent sounds
- Foreign words, names, places and mimeticsonomotopoea are written with it
- also (as mentioned above) used like italics

KANJI - 漢字
- blocky and complex
- non-phonetic - they represent MEANINGS/IDEAS
- often have multiple pronunciations
- derived from Chinese

Simple, real-life illustration that shows all three in use:
私はアメリカ人です。watashi wa amerikajin desu
I am an American.


--私(watashi) is written in kanji, and represents the meaning I/ME. There is no indication of pronunciation in looking at it.
--は - the grammatical particle WA, written in hiragana.
--アメリカ - "America" written in katakana, as it is a foreign loanword.
--人 - kanji representing "person." Alone it's pronounced "hito," but attached to アメリカ and it becomes "jin."
--です A Japanese word meaning "to be."

That's all there is to it. The basics are easy however learning to read Japanese well is a very trying task-- the best of luck to you!

[Airth]

Nice post Psy. I think you managed to summarise the key elements quite succinctly.

[Bloodborne]

Yep, Psy pretty much broke it down right there.

[laughinghyena21]

Very nice, Doumo