In order to learn Japanese, you must familiarize yourself with the various Japanese writing systems, primarily hiragana, katakana, and kanji. There is a possibility that some students may overlook the other writing systems as they are difficult to learn. It’s better to learn hiragana rather than katakana, kanji, or another system if you have this problem.
No, learning the Japanese alphabet is not difficult and is necessary for even beginning to learn Japanese. As there are two alphabets stacked on top of each other, I suggest you at least learn the kana charts if you are interested in learning the language. It is necessary to understand the different writing systems and aspects of the Japanese language in order to learn it. A new language can be difficult to learn because of these factors.
You will be able to learn Japanese easily if you follow this tried and true method.
Therefore, you might be wondering – in what order should I learn Japanese? When it comes to learning a writing system, what is the best one to learn first? How can I become a good speaker of Japanese? You have come to the right place if you have been wondering how and why you should learn Japanese in the order you should. The article will begin shortly.
What are the 3 Japanese alphabets used for?
Unlike other languages, Japanese uses three different alphabets, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In order to read and write the Japanese language correctly, learners must master these alphabets, also called Japanese writing systems.
Kanji, hiragana, and katakana are the three alphabets of Japanese. Despite the fact that all three writing systems are used together in Japanese texts, they serve different purposes. In consequence, knowing all three alphabets is essential to speaking, listening, reading, and writing Japanese properly. The three writing systems of Japanese must all be learned if you wish to learn the language.
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 the 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.
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.