Japanese: The Writing System

Mastering the writing system can be the greatest hindrance to learning the Japanese language.

To westerners, the Japanese writing system can seem like a train wreck. Not only is Japanese traditionally read top to bottom then right to left, but on top of that the Japanese use four different scripts to convey information, those being:

• Kanji (highlighted in yellow):

Kanji, the logographic script which makes up the majority of Japanese writing, was initially borrowed from the Chinese and became commonly used in Japan in the early seventh century. Each kanji character represents a specific word, but can have multiple pronunciations. There are about 1500 kanji characters recognized by the Japanese government, but one must know at least 2000 to read the newspaper.

• Romaji (highlighted in green):

Probably the one you're most familiar with, Romaji was brought into common use after World War II, when it was universally added to the public school curriculum. It is essentially the romanization of Japanese sounds, and the standard input system for all Japanese computers. There are 26 romaji characters.

• Katakana (highlighted in magenta):

Katakana, one of two syllabic languages of the Japanese writing system, was originally developed in the early ninth century by Buddhist monks as a form of shorthand, based upon traditional kanji. Its most common use in modern Japanese is to represent foreign words, primarily ones of English origin. There are 46 katakana characters in modern daily use.

• Hiragana (highlighted in blue):

The second of the two syllabic scripts is hiragana, which was originally developed by women who were not afforded the education necessary to understand kanji, at about the same time as katakana. Any kanji character can be represented in hiragana, and every hiragana character corresponds to a katakana character, therefore there are also 46 hiragana characters. 

^^Mouseover to highlight scripts^^

>>An example of Japanese manga. Notice the tiny hiragana characters next to the kanji which show pronunciation so that children and foreigners can understand it. This style is called furigana.>>