Japanese characters

(Disclaimer: I am neither a Japanese teacher nor a Japanese expert. If there are any mistakes in my posts about Japanese language, I apologise. Also, if you don't have Japanese character support enabled on your computer, you may see a whole lot of nothing.

See also my post on place names in Japanese characters.)

Some people say that Japanese is a very difficult language to learn. It's true that it is very different to English, and takes a lot of hard work. But personally, I think the biggest reason Japanese is so difficult is not the various levels of politeness; it's not the seemingly random particles people inject into sentences; it's not the vastly different word order in sentences.

It's the writing system. Basically, it takes a long time and a lot of commitment to learn to read Japanese properly. However, it is interesting. ^_^

Japanese can be written in three different types of character.

Katakana - each syllable represents a sound (eg カ is 'ka', レ is 're'), and is used to write foreign words and occasionally Japanese ones (for example, カラオケ, karaoke, is usually written in katakana). For example, Kawasaki's mall 'LaZona' is written ラゾーナ.

Katakana are the least common characters when reading Japanese sentences or stories. However, if you're a foreigner new to Japan, this is the set of characters I recommend you learn first.

Why katakana first? Well, it will help you read some signs, and particularly store names, menus and food items. If you go to a coffee shop, for example, it's common to see a list of items like アイスティー ('aisu tei', or 'iced tea'). If you go to a burger shop, you'll see バーガー ('ba-ga-', or 'burger') many times. A lot of product names in Japan are foreign words, and therefore you can read them in katakana without even needing to learn the Japanese word.

It is also useful for learning the correct pronunciation of foreign things in Japan. For example, no shopkeeper I ever met understood my pronunciation of 'croissant'. Until I read the katakana carefully (クロワサン、 or 'kurowasan'), I would be met with blank looks, or in one case, a muffin. (How does 'croissant' get mistaken for 'muffin' anyway?!)

For me, the katakana I grew best at recognising quickly were: 'cappuccino', 'coffee', 'karaoke', 'beer' and 'sawa'. Ha ha ha...

Hiragana - each syllable represents a sound (eg か is 'ka', れ is 're'), and is used to write Japanese words. Every Japanese sound can be written in katakana or hiragana. Generally, hiragana looks a bit more curved and 'fluid'; katakana is simpler and more blocky. Here are some examples:
ka ki ku ke ko sa shi tsu se so
In hiragana: かきくけこさしつせそ
In katakana:　カキクケコサシツセソ

Some Japanese words are made up of both hiragana and kanji. For example, look at this verb, 飲む - 'nomu', 'to drink'. The first character ('no') is a kanji, the second ('mu') is hiragana. If you make the verb past tense (飲んだ - 'nonda') or conditional (飲んだら, 'nondara'), you can see it's hiragana at the end of the word doing the hard work. ^_^

Hiragana is the character set which children learn first, so if you find picture books in Japanese, they will usually be written in hiragana. Also, comics and books aimed at children will, if not be written wholly in hiragana, will likely have hiragana written above the kanji (this is called 'furigana'), so the children who haven't learned those kanji can still read the text. You will probably find furigana in textbooks for students of Japanese, too!

Hiragana is the set you will probably focus on first if you are studying Japanese properly. As I said, I think katakana is more useful in the short term if you are actually moving to Japan, but as you learn more Japanese vocabulary, hiragana will become more useful. After all, if you can read the hiragana すいか (suika) but don't know that 'suika' means 'watermelon', what's the point? However, if you aspire to actually learning to read in Japanese, you will need to know hiragana well.

One nice thing about karaoke in Japan is that most songs have furigana above the kanji, so once you learn to read hiragana fast enough, you can sing along to your favourite Japanese tunes. ^_^

Kanji - the enemy! Actually, they are very interesting, but they are the reason why Japanese is difficult. Even Japanese people struggle with them sometimes. Kanji are Chinese characters (indeed, many of them have the same meaning in Chinese, though usually a different pronunciation). They range from very simple and quick to write (for example, 一, which means 'one'), to very complex (for example 曜, which is part of the word 'day', as in 'Monday', 'Tuesday', etc).

Usually, kanji look more complex and have more strokes than katakana or hiragana. Unlike katakana and furigana, kanji don't represent a sound, they represent an idea. The same character can have different pronunciations in different contexts.

For example, this kanji 新 means 'new'.
If you add a hiragana 'shii' on the end, like 新しい, the pronunciation is 'atara', making the word 'atarashii' (the adjective 'new').
If you put it directly before a noun, such as 月 (month) to make a noun compound, eg 新月, the pronunciation is 'shin', making the word 'shingetsu' (meaning 'new moon').
This 'shin' is the same 'shin' in 'shinkansen' (bullet train).

Some kanji have several different possible pronunciations. For example, 上, which means 'above' or 'top', can be pronounced 'ue' 上 (on), or 'jou' in 'jouzu' 上手　(skillful), or 'a' in 'agaru' 上がる (to rise), or 'uwa' in 'uwagi' 上着 (jacket, outer garment).

If you are trying to read a website or email in Japanese, but don't know all the kanji, I strongly recommend Denshi Jisho. You can install it as a 'bookmarklet' in your bookmark bar, and instantly look up any Japanese words (not only kanji, but any words).