**** 1 - kurisensei

B 02
Writing in Japanese:
The 3 Character Sets
How do you write in
Japanese?
Index
• How do you write in Japanese?
Why 3 character sets? Quizzes
• What is Hiragana?
• What is Katakana?
• What is Kanji?
• How about English characters?
• Questions
How do you write in Japanese?
To write in English, we use the English alphabet,
such as a b c d e f g h I j k …
To write in Japanese, we use the Japanese
characters.
There are THREE sets of Japanese characters.
They are called:
1 Hiragana
2 Katakana
3
Kanji
How do you write in Japanese?
So, you can write a word “Japan” in Japanese in
three ways using each of the three character sets.
in Hiragana
in Katakana
in Kanji
にほん
ニホン
日本
The three words look quite different, don’t they?
Nevertheless, the three words are all written in
Japanese and mean the same, “Japan”.
Which one looks the best to you?
Why THREE Character Sets?
You might wonder “Why Japanese has three
character sets when English has only one?”
Sorry, that’s wrong! You need more than English
alphabet (A to Z) to write in English. Think about…
0 1 2 3 4 5…
+ - % =…
These numbers are from Arabic, not English.
These are your maths friends but not in A-Z.
☺ @ → ,…
Useful symbols we use everyday. Not in A-Z.
So, it’s same in Japanese. The three character sets
are used for different purposes, making writing and
reading easier!
Quizzes
How many writing character
sets are there in Japanese?
3
What character sets are there
in Japanese? Name them all.
Hiragana
Katakana
Kanji
Why are there more than one
character sets are there in
Japanese?
To make the
writing and
reading easier!
What is Hiragana?
Hiragana is one of the three writing character sets
of Japanese. Click to see the Hiragana set.
W
R
Y
M
H
N
T
S
K
わ
ら
や
ま
は
な
た
さ
か
あ
a
み
ひ
に
ち
し
き
い
I
む
ふ
ぬ
つ
す
く
う
u
め
へ
ね
て
せ
け
え
e
も
ほ
の
と
そ
こ
お
o
り
ん
る
ゆ
れ
を1
ろ
よ
This table has ALL the 46 Hiragana characters. This
table is called Hiragana chart.
Each Hiragana character represents a syllable/sound.
So when do we use these Hiragana?
What is Hiragana?
Using Hiragana, you can basically spell/write everything in
Japanese. Such as:
すし sushi
とうきょう Tokyo
まんが manga comic
ぼくはごくうです。 I am Goku.
Therefore, Hiragana is the MAIN Japanese character set and
FIRST to learn. In Japan, kids learn Hiragana first, too.
It says うどん
(udon noodles) in
Hiragana
It says さくら(Sakura),
name of the shop in
Hiragana
What is Hiragana?
Just some Hiragana trivia for you!
Hiragana was created and developed during the Heian
Period (794-1185).
Hiragana was created from Kanji. For example,
安(kanji) → あ(hiragana) 宇(kanji) → う(hiragana)
Hiragana strokes are curvy in general. Actually, Hiragana
was mainly used by ladies when it was created!
Hiragana characters are simple. All of them can be
written in one to four strokes. Four is the maximum.
Want to learn Hiragana now and start writing in Japanese? Please
see the other Nihongo Recipe on Hiragana.
What is Katakana?
Katakana is mainly used to spell “borrowed/loan”
words. They are words from overseas to Japan.
Click to see the Katakana chart.
W
R
Y
M
H
N
T
S
K
ワ
ラ
ヤ
マ
ハ
ナ
タ
サ
カ
ア
a
ミ
ヒ
ニ
チ
シ
キ
イ
I
ム
フ
ヌ
ツ
ス
ク
ウ
u
メ
ヘ
ネ
テ
セ
ケ
エ
e
モ
ホ
ノ
ト
ソ
コ
オ
o
リ
ンn
ル
ユ
レ
ヲ
ロ
ヨ
This Katakana chart has ALL the 46 Katakana
characters. It is exactly the same as Hiragana chart,
except each of the characters looks a bit different.
What is Katakana?
Using Katakana, you can spell things form overseas to Japan.
Such as:
ハンバーガー hamburger
コカコーラ coca-cola
Using Katakana, you can also spell things in overseas.
オーストラリア Australia
It says マクドナルド
(McDonald’s) in
Katakana
カンガルー kangaroo
It says ハンバーガー
(hamburger) in
Katakana
What is Katakana?
Just some Katakana trivia for you!
Katakana was also created and developed during the
Heian Period (794-1185).
Katakana was created from Kanji. For example,
江(kanji) → エ(katakana) 多(kanji) → タ(katakana)
Katakana strokes are more straight in general.
Katakana characters are even simpler. Most of them are written in
one or two strokes.
Katakana literally means “parts of Kana”. Some Katakana characters
are parts of their partner Hiragana.
Want to learn more about Katakana? Please see the other Nihongo Recipe on
Katakana. Make sure you learn Hiragana first before Katakana!
What is Kanji?
Kanji is one of the three writing character sets of
Japanese. Click to see some of the Kanji.
There are quite a few, aren’t there? But this is just a
tiny part of the whole Kanji.
So when do we use Kanji?
What is Kanji?
Using Kanji, you can write words short. Compare the
number of characters in these words in Kanji and English.
山 mountain
人 person
水 water
All the three Kanji are one character each. So all you need is
one character of Kanji to spell “mountain” in Japanese.
To write in a sentence, you can mix Hiragana, Katakana and
Kanji. See how short (less characters) this sentence is.
山の人は川の水をのむ。
The people in the mountain drink water from the river.
The sentence in Japanese has 10 characters (4 Kanji & 6 Hiragana) while the one
in English has 44 characters! This is because using Kanji, you can spell words
SHORT. Save your time and space with Kanji!
What is Kanji?
As well as making words short, Kanji makes reading and writing visual/
pictorial, therefore easy to understand. Most of Kanji was developed
from a picture. Click to see how some was developed from its picture.
大
生
雨
big
life/ born
rain
Quick Kanji Quiz
Can you guess what the following Kanji characters represent?
木
火
tree
口
fire
雪
mouth
snow
魚
上
up, above
fish
What is Kanji?
Want to find more Kanji?
• Kids web: quick kanji
http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/language/quickkanji/index.html
• Kanji world
http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/shimomura/meruhen.html
• Nihongo e-Na: Kanji learning websites
http://nihongo-e-na.com/jpn/hint/id332_1.html/cmid/32/
• Kanji movies
http://study.kids.yahoo.co.jp/japanese/01/mov_01/index.html
What is Kanji?
Just some Kanji trivia for you!
Japan imported Kanji from China. The word “Kanji”
literally means “Chinese characters”.
A Kanji character represents a meaning and sound. For
example, 手 means “hand” and reads “te”. They can
have more than two meanings and sounds.
Kanji is the only modern and major pictorial characters
in the world today.
There are more than 2000 Kanji characters used in Japanese!
However, there are only 50 “basic” Kanji. By combining the 50 in
different ways, you can make the rest of Kanji.
What is Kanji?
So, here is the writing in Japanese.
ナルトは日本の忍者です。キティちゃんは日本の猫です。
Naruto is a Japanese ninja. Hello Kitty is a Japanese cat.
In the sentence, all the three Hiragana, Katakana
and Kanji characters are used.
ナルトは日本の忍者です。キティちゃんは日本の猫です。
Naruto is a Japanese ninja. Hello Kitty is a Japanese cat.
After all, Japanese is a colourful language!
How about English characters?
English characters are also used in Japanese writing.
The common ones are:
CD, DVD, am/pm, TV, Toyota, Panasonic…
English characters are used for abbreviating, brand
names, shop names and signs and more.
McDonald Japan
http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/
Hello Kitty
http://www.hellokitty.ne.jp/
Doraemon
http://dora-world.com/index.html
How about English characters?
English characters are also used to help people
read Japanese if they don’t read it. This English
characters are called Roma-ji.
Questions
Is it Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji?
With which one you can write/ spell
everything therefore is to be learnt first?
Hiragana
Which one do you use to spell words from
overseas (borrowed/ loan words)?
Katakana
Which is a set of 46 and each character
represents a syllable/ sound? List two.
Hiragana &
Katakana
Which one was developed from pictures
therefore each of the character has a
meaning?
Kanji
Sometimes English characters are used to help
people read Japanese. What’s it’s called?
Roma-ji

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