If you are interested in learning Japanese, you should start by learning its alphabet. We have everything you need right here! This is the place where we begin to teach you Japanese writing and reading.

What are the 3 writing systems

Japanese is significantly different as it uses three different alphabets which are called hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Otherwise called Japanese writing systems, these alphabets must be mastered by any learner to be able to read and write the Japanese language correctly.

There are three alphabets in Japanese, and they are hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Although all three writing systems are used together in Japanese texts, you should realize that they play different roles in the language. As a consequence of this, no one will be to speak, listen, read, and write Japanese properly without knowing all three alphabets. So, if you want to learn Japanese, you need to learn all three writing systems.

Let’s shed more light on the three Japanese alphabets.

1. Hiragana

This writing system is known as the fundamental phonetic alphabet of the Japanese language. It is used for the representation of each sound in Japanese. Therefore, it can be theoretically assumed that every form of writing can be done in hiragana. Practically, Japanese people don’t write everything in hiragana because Japanese texts don’t usually have spaces. Hence, kanji must come alongside hiragana characters for people to understand a Japanese text.

Overall, there are 46 basic hiragana characters. Each of these characters has a specific sound, but the meanings are not independent.

What are the main roles of hiragana?

Now, let’s take a look at the most important roles that hiragana play in the Japanese language.

• Hiragana is for creating grammatical structure

The most prominent role of hiragana is for adding grammatical structure to any Japanese sentence. Sometimes, when it is added to a word, it will alter its meaning completely. Therefore, if you don’t have hiragana symbols in some words, it will be difficult to make any sense out of them.

• Hiragana is used for writing

Generally, hiragana characters are utilized for writing different Japanese words. As suggested earlier, various Japanese words can be written entirely hiragana. Even if you don’t remember the right kanji characters to use in a particular instance, you can substitute it with a hiragana symbol.

• hiragana is utilized for showing pronunciation of a word

If there is an unusual kanji symbol in a Japanese text, it may be difficult to determine the pronunciation of such a word. However, if a hiragana character is added to the kanji symbol, it will be easier for you to know the right pronunciation. When used in this manner, such a hiragana symbol will be called yomigana or furigana. In some other situations, hiragana can be used to write some Japanese words that don’t have any kanji equivalent.

2. Katakana

The second Japanese alphabet is katakana. It is similar to hiragana because it is a phonetic system with every character having a specific syllable or sound.  Like hiragana, a beginner must learn katakana as soon as possible to ensure that they can have a good grasp of the Japanese language.

What are katakana symbols used for?

Katakana symbols are usually utilized for an array of things. But the most common and significant ones are non-Japanese words. In other words, katakana characters are often used for representing borrowed or foreign. You should note that several Japanese words are borrowed from English and a few other languages. So, such borrowed words will be written with katakana. In fact, over 80% of the time that katakana symbols are used in Japanese, they represent foreign words.

For English speakers, katakana makes it easy for you to speak Japanese. This is because when you understand the characters of katakana, it will be easier for you to identify various words that are borrowed from the English language.

Apart from foreign or borrowed words, it is also possible to find katakana symbols that are used for:

• Names of some animals
• Scientific words that don’t have any specific Japanese equivalent
• Company names – the companies can be either foreign or local ones
• Robot-speech – this refers to when Japanese texts are written as if robots are talking
• Names of foods – this is particularly true for plant and animal foods as well as foreign foods
• Onomatopoeia – these are words that are written in the same way as what they represent
• Adding stylistic purposes to texts
• Putting emphasis on some texts

Katakana characters are also useful in several other cases, but they are not as significant as the ones described above.

Kanji

The third alphabet of the Japanese language is kanji. In general, kanji symbols are known as logograms i.e. pictures that are using for ideas, concepts, or words. Kanji is a writing script adopted from the Chinese language and used for giving more clarity and meaning to Japanese.

Overall, there are more than 50,000 kanji symbols in Japanese. But you don’t have to worry about these characters as an average native Japanese speaker doesn’t even know more than 10 percent of these characters. As a learner, your focus should be on the first 2,000 kanji characters. From there, you can start learning more kanji symbols.

What are kanji characters used for?

Typically, kanji symbols are important when you want to describe certain content-heavy words. These words may include verbs, adverbs, nouns, as well as adjectives. As a result of this, you don’t need kanji if you only want to learn how to speak and listen to the Japanese language. 

However, when it comes to writing and reading, you cannot do without knowing some important kanji characters. Kanji will probably account for over 40% of the printable symbols in an average Japanese newspaper. Therefore, if you want to read newspapers, books, food menus, and other things correctly, you need to familiarize yourself with kanji characters.

It is noteworthy that some people consider Japanese to have a fourth writing system which is called romaji. However, you should understand that romaji is not a real writing script on its own, but it is just a way of Romanizing Japanese. Romaji is only used for making it easy for foreigners to have a quick understanding of the Japanese language.

Which Japanese alphabet should I learn first?

Once you have shown interest and readiness to learn the Japanese language, there are tons of questions you will be looking for answers to. One of such questions is – what Japanese alphabet should I learn first? 

Without mincing words, hiragana is the Japanese alphabet you should learn first. This Japanese writing script is not only easy to learn, but it also has some elements that can help you to learn other alphabets. Besides, hiragana can serve as a factor that will motivate you to be successful in your learning journey. So, if you are ready to learn Japanese, you should kick-start it by learning hiragana.

What is hiragana?

Assuming you are a new learner, you probably don’t know what hiragana is. So, before explaining why you should start your learning process with hiragana, let’s first describe what hiragana is. Basically, hiragana is a Japanese writing system.  It is the basic script that is used by millions of Japanese-speaking people for day-to-day communication.

Hiragana has a total of 46 fundamental characters. Each character comes with a specific phonetic syllable. These characters are usually written together to represent different Japanese sounds. Generally, hiragana is simple and easy to write and read as long as you have an excellent grasp of its meaning.

The three basic functions of this writing script include:

• For indicating the grammatical function of a particular Japanese word
• For replacing Japanese that don’t have kanji and katakana equivalents
• For changing the meaning of adjectives, verbs, and adjectives in the Japanese language

Why hiragana should be the first Japanese alphabet you learn

As indicated earlier, hiragana should be the first Japanese alphabet you will learn. However, this decision is based on a wide range of reasons including:

• You can learn hiragana characters quickly

Hiragana contains only 46 characters. That is, you only need to study 46 characters repeatedly, and then you would have understood Japanese hiragana. When you consider the fact that English has a total of 26 capital letters, 26 small letters, and some extra punctuation marks, you will realize that the English language has more than 80 characters. So, learning 46 characters should not be a big issue for you.

Factually, if you are determined to learn hiragana, you can learn all characters in just one or two days. Even if you don’t want to rush, you can master five different characters each day and, resultantly, complete everything in less than 2 weeks.

• Hiragana is easy to learn

When learning to write and read Japanese, Japanese kids often start with hiragana. Of course, this is because hiragana is easier to learn than the other two popular writing systems of Japanese (katakana and kanji). As a beginner, you are not different from Japanese kids as you only have basic knowledge of the language. Therefore, you should start where the Japanese often begin their learning process.

• Hiragana is the commonly used Japanese writing system

As long as Japanese is concerned, hiragana is used more often than other writing scripts in day-to-day conversations. Whether you are reading newspapers, subtitles of Japanese anime or films, listening to podcasts, etc., you will see lots of hiragana regularly. As a consequence, a new Japanese learner will get the most natural and best opportunities to study the writing and reading parts of the language when they understand hiragana.

• Learning hiragana aids pronunciation of different Japanese sounds

As suggested before, the foundational phonetic writing script of Japanese is hiragana. It is the basic writing system that can be used for symbolizing every specific sound. So, if you start learning the writing system of Japanese with hiragana, you are likely to experience little or no difficulty when pronouncing some Japanese sounds.

• Long lines of katakana can hardly make sense without hiragana

Foremost, katakana represents words that are borrowed from other languages. Without a doubt, you can use katakana symbols to form independent texts. But it will be extremely difficult for anyone to understand a long line of different katakana characters.

Fortunately, you can add some hiragana characters to the long lines of katakana texts to make them meaningful. Therefore, if you begin your study with katakana, you will need to learn hiragana or kanji for a better understanding.

• Hiragana can aid other writing characters

Once you have learned hiragana, your knowledge can be applied to various other scenarios. But this is not applicable for katakana and kanji, which are two other writing systems of the Japanese language. For example, when you want to write furigana and yomigana (these are reading aids that help you to pronoun kanji symbols appropriately), you will need to know hiragana. Therefore, your understanding of hiragana will go a long way in assisting you to learn several other writing Japanese characters.

In addition to this, hiragana characters have corresponding hiragana symbols. So, when you understand hiragana, learning katakana will be easier for you.

• Several resources are available for hiragana

Whenever you want to learn a new language, you need to go through lots of resources. Out of all Japanese writing scripts, hiragana has the most abundant resources. So, whether you are looking for the simplest resources or the most difficult ones, you can rest assured that you will find them.

As a beginner, most kids’ books are written in hiragana. So, you can start learning like a Japanese kid by picking one of the kids’ books. The vast availability of these resources will be pivotal to ensuring that you understand Japanese as quickly and expertly as possible.

• Hiragana can motivate you to learn other parts of the language

If you are learning Japanese or any other language, you need to find motivations that will keep you going. Since hiragana is easy to learn, it can serve as the factor that will motivate you to continue learning the other parts of the language. Resultantly, you will likely experience massive success in your whole learning experience.

What is the easiest way to learn the Japanese alphabet

Resultantly, you may be asking a wide range of questions such as – in which order should I learn Japanese? Which writing system should I learn first? What are the things I must learn to have a good grasp of the Japanese language?

It is important to learn Japanese in a systematic way. The most common form of writing for the Japanese language is hiragana, which is recommended for beginners. Then you should proceed to learning katakana and kanji. Pronunciation and vocabulary are the next things you need to practice. Final tip: study key phrases and words so you can make things easier for yourself.

You will be able to master the Japanese language more easily if you follow this tried and tested order.

If you have been looking for answers to these questions, you have come to the right place because this article will shed more light on the order you should learn Japanese as well as why you should learn in that particular order. So, let’s dive into the article.

Start learning with hiragana

Although there are a few controversies about some particular areas of the order of learning Japanese, many Japanese tutors and experts agree that you should start learning with hiragana. Without a doubt, hiragana is the simplest and most basic writing system of Japanese. Therefore, you should start your learning process with this awesome writing system.

Perhaps you are thinking about why you should start learning with hiragana; we will show you some reasons for this:

• It is simple to read and understand

Since hiragana is phonetic, it is quite easy to learn for every learner. If you are a speaker of western languages such as English and French, learning may look difficult at the beginning. However, it is not difficult to learn.

Basically, every hiragana letter is used for representing a specific sound. Hence, as you are learning this writing system, it becomes easy for you to read Japanese. Besides, learning hiragana is usually fun-filled and easy to monitor. As a consequence, you can track your progress and get the motivation you need to continue learning at a fast pace.

• It consists of only 46 letters

Another reason why you should start with hiragana is that this writing system features only 46 letters. Therefore, you only need to master 46 things before you can start using it. This is significantly different from kanji where you need to learn over 2,000 characters. Imagine how overwhelmed you would be to start learning 2,000 different characters. So, you should avoid such demotivating problems by starting your learning process with hiragana. After understanding hiragana, you can move to other writing systems.

• It enhances your listening and speaking skills

As indicated earlier, every hiragana character refers to one sound (phoneme). Resultantly, every letter gives you a visual clue of a phoneme. With the aid of hearing and seeing, you can master every sound without much hassle.

Therefore, having a good mastery of hiragana can go a long way in enhancing your listening and speaking skills. It will be easier for you to have an understanding of the Japanese words better when the language is being spoken to you. This is because your ears have mastered Japanese during your hiragana classes.

• It aids Japanese reading

When they are learning how to read Japanese, Japanese kids are usually first introduced to hiragana. Why is this so? This is because hiragana is the most important aspect of mastering reading skills. In fact, learning hiragana will play a key role in assisting you to read kanji. When learning kanji, a few hiragana characters will be placed around kanji to ease the process of pronouncing the words. Therefore, hiragana is fundamental to learning other parts of the language.

• It doesn’t take too long to learn

If you put your mind into what you are learning, it doesn’t take a long period to study and understand hiragana. Factually, lots of people have mastered hiragana within 1 or 2 weeks of learning it. So, it is a good way to start learning the Japanese language and getting the inspiration you need to take your learning to the next level.

When you consider the various benefits of starting your Japanese learning journey with hiragana, you will agree that it is truly the right place to start learning the language. Once you have mastered hiragana, you can then move forward to other aspects of the language.

Proceed to katakana

After completing hiragana, the next thing on the order is learning katakana. Basically, katakana refers to some characters that represent the same sounds you will come across in the hiragana alphabet. It is worthwhile to understand that katakana is not as common as hiragana, but it is also quite essential. You should learn katakana after hiragana because of three reasons:

• It is used for representing foreign or borrowed words

Every language borrows certain words from other languages. Japanese is not different; hence, you can expect to see some words that are borrowed from Chinese and other common languages in Japanese. Of course, you need to learn these borrowed or foreign words too during your learning process. In the Japanese language, these foreign words are represented with katakana. So, if you want to understand the foreign words in Japanese, you must master katakana.

• It helps the understanding of kanji readings

Kanji readings form an essential part of the Japanese language. However, these readings can be really difficult to understand for most Japanese learners. Luckily, you can make things a bit easier for yourself by mastering katakana. This is because katakana is important for anyone to have a good understanding of kanji readings.

• Many kanji radicals are named after some katakana characters

In general, some kanji radicals resemble katakana characters. Such kanji radicals are named after such katakana characters that they look like. Therefore, if you want to have a quick and easy understanding of such kanji radicals, it will be helpful for you to learn katakana characters.

Another important reason why you should start learning katakana after hiragana is that there is some resemblance between hiragana and katakana characters. This shows that studying katakana doesn’t necessarily mean that you are learning a new writing system from the scratch.

Therefore, when you start learning katakana, you already have a good knowledge of hiragana. The learning process will be faster and easier than learning katakana before hiragana. You just have to breeze through the 46 characters of katana and then take the next step to learn other important aspects of the Japanese language.