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Lesson 2

Japanese people know three different character sets: Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana. A fourth one also often found in modern-day Japan is called "Romaji", which is simply our Western (Latin) alphabet. It's mostly used in public places, especially advertising.

The three Japanese character sets

Kanji

The most difficult and complex Japanese character set, both in terms of writing and learning them, is Kanji. Kanji literally translates as "Han characters", which means "Chinese characters", because the Kanji characters were originally "imported" from China in the fifth century A.D., and are also still used in Chinese today. Every Kanji character has its own meaning - and to make matters worse, the same Kanji can have different meanings, including different pronunciations, depending on the context, and it may even mean something totally different in Chinese. A Japanese word (or name, for that matter) can consist of a single Kanji, but can also be comprised of several Kanji. There's no "easy" way to learn how to pronounce Kanji. You really have to learn every single one of them individually. Many younger Japanese people tend to dislike Kanji, because chances are they might encounter a higher-class Kanji character which they have to look up. Print media, especially for younger children, also give a pronunciation assistance for uncommon Kanji in Furigana (see Hiragana).

It's really not that difficult to tell Kanji apart from Katakana and Hiragana: If it looks rather complex, chances are it's a Kanji.


Some examples for Kanji

Tokyo

Japan ("Nihon" or sometimes "Nippon")

Kanji

Airplane ("hikouki")

Bicycle ("jitensha")

Note that I had to look those up myself. I can't read Kanji yet, though I hope that I'll be able to do so one day.

Hiragana

Hiragana (literally "smooth kana") is one of the two character sets collectively referred to as "Kana" (the other one is Katakana). Kana were derived from Kanji in the 7th and 8th century and later evolved into Hiragana and Katakana. A Kana character, which originally started out as an extremely simplified version of a Kanji character, has no meaning by itself, but simply represents a sound, or, more precisely, a syllable. For that reason, Hiragana and Katakana are considered as syllabaries ("syllable alphabets"). Japanese children start out with Hiragana before moving on to learning to read and write Kanji. Texts for adults use Hiragana for prefixes and suffixes (such as "~san", as in "Fumihiko-san"), grammatical particles (e.g. "kara", i.e. "because", "so" or "therefore"), to denote vowel tenses, inflections and to spell Japanese words which either don't have a Kanji or whose Kanji is rather uncommon and therefore will most probably result in many a reader having to look it up. Private letters also tend to be heavily Hiragana-ridden, because it's considered impolite to try and impress others with one's own level of education. Texts particularly aimed at younger Japanese people also use "Furigana" - Hiragana written next to uncommon Kanji (or for even younger readers, all Kanji) as a pronunciation assistance.

How do you tell Hiragana apart from Kanji and Katakana? Unlike the rather complex Kanji, Hiragana characters are extremely simplified, and they usually have a rather cursive shape. Of course, I could list the entire Hiragana alphabet here, but since this is supposed to be a quick guide to Katakana, I will only list a few examples.


Some examples for Hiragana

Hiragana ("Hi-ra-ga-na")

kara ("ka-ra")

~san ("sa-n")

Katakana

We finally reached the reason why (most of) you wanted to read this guide in the first place. Katakana (literally "fragmentary kana") is the second Kana alphabet. The sounds (syllables) covered by Katakana are exactly the same ones as for Hiragana, it's just the characters that are different. Compared to Hiragana, Katakana is mostly made up of straight lines. Today, Katakana is mostly used for transliterating foreign words and names. What's important is that they're transliterated phonetically, not based on the written form. In other words, the foreign word is written based on how a Japanese person would pronounce it. For example, "internet" becomes "intaanetto". Foreign phrases are often, but not necessarily, transliterated with a middle dot separating the words.
On a sidenote, non-Japanese people often like to use Katakana characters due to their "futuristic" look. Remember the green symbols running across the screen in the "Matrix" movies? Many of them were actually mirrored Katakanas.


Click here for lesson 3.

- Nevermore

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