The Three Writing Systems

Written Japanese combines three distinct styles of characters or symbols: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. A fourth style, romaji has also been developed, which uses the roman alphabet.

Hiragana (he-hrah-gah-nah)

Hiragana consists of 46 phonetic symbols, which in English is called a syllabary. Each character corresponds to a specific sound or grouping of sounds used in Japanese, enabling all Japanese words to be written phonetically. Hiragana is also used to write words in place of kanji obsolete in modern language, for words not derived from the original Chinese characters, or when the number of kanji in a sentence becomes too large as to be visually unaesthetic. The Japanese language contains many words with the same pronunciations, so kanji are also frequently used in place of hiragana to clarify meaning.

In modern Japanese, Hiragana is used to write:

• Japanese words with no kanji, ?
• Indications of how to read kanji
• Common or everyday words which are apparently easier to read in hiragana than kanji.
• Grammatical particles
• Variation in endings for adjectives and verbs

Katakana (kah-tah-kah-nah)

Katakana is an independent phonetic syllabary fairly comparable to English italics. Mainly used to represent foreign or emphasized words, katakana utilizes a one to one match with the hiragana syllabary.

In modern Japanese, Katakana is used to write:

• Words and names from foreign languages
• Onomatopoeia
• Emphasized words (similar to italics in English)

Kanji (kahn-gee)

Kanji translates into "Chinese (kan) characters (ji).", illustrating its origins from China in the 6th C. AD. Similar to the Chinese hanzi in many aspects (with most discrepancies in pronunciation), Kanji basically represent ideas or objects. These kanji, combined with the other sets of characters such as Hiragana, create the meanings of words in the Japanese language.

Although tens of thousands of kanji have been used in the past, today, Japanese students learn about 2000 kanji until the end of high school and continue to learn more until the end of their academic lives. Consequently, the number of kanji a person knows and uses reflects his or her education.

Mastering Kanji is a complex and arduous task, not only because of its large number, but in the understanding of each individual kanji adopting different meanings and pronunciations in combination with the other sets of characters as well as on their position within a sentence or word.

In modern Japanese, Kanji are used to write:

• Nouns
• Stems of adjectives and verbs
• Japanese names

Romaji (roe-mah-gee)
Romaji was developed as a means to write Japanese words phonetically using the Roman Alphabet, in place of hiragana, katakana, and kanji. As English is taught in Japanese schools from middle and high school, most Japanese can read romaji, increasing its usage in contemporary times.

In modern Japanese, Romaji are Roman characters, used to write:

• Acronyms
• Numbers in horizontal writing
• International units of measurement