The beginning of the process of learning Japanese will introduce you to various Japanese writing systems, primarily hiragana, katakana, and kanji. It is possible that some students may neglect the other writing systems due to the difficulty of learning them. If you have this problem, then learning only hiragana is the better approach rather than learning katakana, kanji, or another system.
Unfortunately, you cannot. Since few words are written in hiragana, you won’t be able to read much. There is a large variation between katakana and kanji, with the former being a font and the latter being a writing system. Knowing kanji is important, but you can do everyday things without them. In both cases, the lesser proficient Japanese speaker recommended katakana as well as hiragana, rather than just hiragana
There are few words written in hiragana that are whole words. There’s no doubt that katakana can be used for whole words, including words of Japanese origin, since it is essentially a font. However, if you don’t have kanji, you won’t be able to read much.
What is the purpose of kanji characters?
In general, kanji symbols are used to describe words with a lot of content. A verb, an adverb, a noun, and an adjective can all be included in the list. Thus, if you only wish to learn Japanese by speaking and listening, you don’t need kanji.
You cannot, however, avoid knowing some important Kanji characters when it comes to writing and reading. A typical Japanese newspaper will probably have more than 40% kanji. Thus, if you are interested in reading newspapers, books, food menus, and other things correctly, it is necessary to get acquainted with kanji characters.
One noteworthy fact about Japanese is that some believe it has a fourth writing system called romaji. Despite this, romaji is not a real writing script on its own, but it is merely a method of romanizing Japanese. Romaji is only used for foreigners to be able to quickly learn the Japanese language.
How do you use hiragana and katakana once you’ve learned them?
Understanding the different writing systems and aspects of the Japanese language is necessary to learn the language. In light of these factors, determining where and how to begin learning a new language can be challenging.
After you have gotten a grip of hiragana and katakana, you can start learning kanji. Kanji is believed by a lot of individuals to be the most tasking part of the Japanese language. Therefore, you should be prepared for what you are bound to deal with as you are trying to learn kanji.
Basically, kanji is a Japanese writing system that was adopted from some Chinese writing characters. It is often combined with hiragana and katakana whenever people are writing Japanese. Therefore, you need to know kanji to be able to read Japanese fluently.
Some people may tell you that learning kanji is not essential to speak Japanese. However, this is not entirely true as there are tons of things you can gain from studying kanji. Below are a few of the reasons why you should learn kanji:
Is it worth it to learn kanji?
The benefits of learning kanji are undeniable. It is generally necessary to learn kanji to read Japanese. Hence, without the ability to read kanji you will not understand the Japanese language. It is generally agreed that learning kanji is difficult, but many people have been able to master the characters at different points in their lives.
Many people learn kanji characters at the beginning of their learning journey, after mastering the language and becoming familiar with other Japanese writing systems. If you want to learn kanji, take the time.
Innumerable ways exist for anyone wishing to learn kanji. Learning kanji characters one by one is one of the ways to do this. Japanese school kids usually do this. Although this is known to be effective, it will take many years before you become fluent. You should instead learn kanji character by character. When learning characters, set a daily target so you can balance similarity, simplicity, and frequency.
Is kanji difficult to learn?
Kanji is basically a writing system that is used for the Japanese language. It is important to understand that kanji, hiragana, and katakana are the three essential writing scripts for Japanese. A kanji can be utilized to represent a word directly or sometimes changed by a hiragana symbol to create another word. Hence, any learner that wants to have a great knowledge of this language must never overlook the need to learn kanji.
You can learn Kanji slowly if you don’t get scared or find it hard. Since hiragana blends together in a mess, this is easier to read than hiragana. If you can infer the meaning of a Kanji sentence without even reading the text, it means you can read faster without even reading the full text.
These are the roots of Kanji, and there are about 214 radicals. Although not all 214 of the radicals are used in current Japanese Kanji, learning them will help you become familiar with the ones that are important. Every Kanji has one or more radicals, while some kanji themselves are radicals, and so, they work alone with their own meaning. Also, some radicals in their modified forms literally have no reasonable meaning and cannot be used alone unless with other radicals.
