[Nihongo 101] The Japanese Writing System Introduction

The Japanese writing system is consist of three different character sets: Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana.

Kanji

Kanji are the Chinese characters which are usually used in Japanese writing. Most of the Kanji characters represents nouns, verbs and adjectives. They represent concrete ideas. There are no spaces in Japanese writing, so Kanji is necessary in distinguishing between separate words within a sentence.

Each character has its own meaning and corresponds to a word. New words can also be created by combining two or more characters.

Here are some of the basic Kanji characters

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Hiragana

Hiragana is used mainly for grammatical purposes like the particles. Colloquial expressions are also written in Hiragana. It's also use commonly for new students instead of Kanji.

Here are some of Hiragana characters

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Image Source : Tofugu

Katakana

Katakana has the same set of sounds with Hiragana, the difference is that - these characters are used to represent new and foreign words.

Here are some of Hiragana characters

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Image Source : Tofugu

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Hope you learned something today minasan! Mata ne!