Learn which writing systems are used in Japanese
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Intro |
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| Michael: What writing systems does Japanese use? |
| Risa: And why are they important? |
| Michael: At JapanesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Let's hear about a typical situation. Karen Lee is very interested in the Japanese language. She is particularly fascinated by the writing system. She asks her friend, Ichika Ishikawa, |
| "How do you write your name, Ichika?" |
| Karen Lee: いちかさんの名前はどう書きますか。 (Ichika-san no namae wa dō kakimasu ka.) |
| Dialogue |
| Karen Lee: いちかさんの名前はどう書きますか。 (Ichika-san no namae wa dō kakimasu ka.) |
| Ichika Ishikawa: ひらがなです。 (Hiragana desu.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Karen Lee: いちかさんの名前はどう書きますか。(Ichika-san no namae wa dō kaimasu ka.) |
| Michael: "How do you write your name, Ichika?" |
| Ichika Ishikawa: ひらがなです。(Hiragana desu.) |
| Michael: "With hiragana." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this conversation, we hear Ichika respond, |
| Risa: ひらがなです。(Hiragana desu.) |
| Michael: which means, "With hiragana." |
| Michael: Hiragana is just one of the writing systems used in Japanese. In this lesson, we'll focus on the three major Japanese writing systems which are Hiragana, or |
| Risa: ひらがな (Hiragana) |
| Michael: Katakana, or |
| Risa: カタカナ (Katakana) |
| Michael: and Kanji, or |
| Risa: 漢字 (Kanji) |
| Michael: Let's begin by talking about Hiragana and Katakana |
| Michael: They are both sometimes referred to together as Kana. For most language learners, mastering these two writing systems is the best place to start when first learning Japanese. |
| Michael: So what makes these writing systems easier for most people to learn? Well, both Hiragana and Katakana are based on a phonological alphabet system, meaning each character represents a sound, not a specific word. This is similar to the way the Latin alphabet works, for example. Each of these two writing systems consists of 46 character sounds. For most language learners, this means mastering the characters in a matter of days, compared to the kanji system or |
| Risa: 漢字 (Kanji) |
| Michael: which can actually take many years to grow confident in, and a lifetime to master. Let's focus now on usage of the kana system. Within a text, Hiragana is primarily used to represent things like particles, adverbs, and auxiliary verbs. Hiragana can also stand in for Kanji characters when the Kanji character may not be as well understood by a wide audience. Katakana, on the other hand, is used primarily as a bridge between foreign loanwords and the Japanese language. It's also used to represent newer words (slang/colloquialisms) or onomatopoeia, for example, that may not necessarily have a Kanji equivalent. |
| Michael: So how does Kanji differ? |
| Michael: The Kanji writing system most closely resembles the Chinese characters from which the writing system originates. According to some linguists and scholars, this writing system was adopted as far back as the 1st century AD, or at the latest, by the 4th century AD. Unlike Hiragana and Katakana, Kanji is not a phonetic language, but, like Chinese, uses characters that individually represent objects or ideas. These symbol-characters are also known as logograms. Whereas the Hiragana and Katakana alphabet can be mastered in a few days, Kanji includes over 50,000 characters. Practically speaking, only about 2,000 characters are used in common conversation. Still, as you can imagine, it takes years to perfect this writing system, and yet you're likely to run across unknown characters fairly often. This is true even for native Japanese speakers. Hopefully, it's some consolation to know that, of those 2,000 characters, about 80% of Kanji text relies only on about 500 of the most common characters. (Yes, "only"!) |
| Michael: You may wonder where Kanji characters most often appear in daily Japanese life. If you travel to Japan, you will find Kanji in newspapers and many other printed publications. Grammatically speaking, Kanji is most often used to represent nouns, verbs, and adjectives that rely especially heavily on content. |
| Michael: Lastly, we'll briefly touch also on the |
| Risa: ローマ字 (Rōmaji) |
| Michael: which is the romanized version of Japanese, which means it uses letters from the Latin alphabet to represent the sounds found in Japanese. For a beginner-level Japanese student still working hard to master the Japanese writing system, this may be tempting. While it can be a bridge for new learners, and even a nice way to double-check your reading skills in Kana or Kanji, it's a good idea to get comfortable with the other Japanese writing systems early on so you're one step closer to mastering the Japanese language. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we learned that the Japanese writing system is a combination of two main character types—an ideogram kanji, which was introduced from China, and a phonogram kana, which was derived from kanji and has two versions the hiragana and the katakana. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Hiragana and Katakana are very similar to each other: they are both composed of 46 signs that correspond to the same sounds. The main difference is how they are used. Imported words from other languages are primarily written in katakana only. For example, |
| Risa:ピアノ (piano) |
| Michael: which means "piano" and |
| Risa: サッカー (sakkā) |
| Michael: meaning "football." Hiragana are also characterized by their curvy, flowing lines, while Katakana are characterized by their angular, boxy lines. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Risa: またね！ (mata-ne!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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