How to Write Japanese - Kana and Kanji

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One of the more intimidating but interesting aspects of the Japanese language is learning how to write Japanese. Japanese writing looks almost impossible to decipher for a Westerner that has only used the 26 letter Latin alphabet. The bad news is that, yes, it is a completely different system. The good news is that it can be broken down into easy to learn parts and mastered with time and practice.

When you first begin to learn how to write Japanese, you will discover a number of writing systems. Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji are the three "alphabets", or character sets, that the Japanese language has. Hiragana and Katakana, collectively known simply as Kana, consist of 46 characters each and Kanji consists of literally thousands, approximately 2000 of which are in common usage. Mastering Hiragana and Katakana will get you to a level of writing that would get you by, but to truly know written Japanese learning the Kanji will be necessary.

The two character sets that comprise the kana are 46 characters each and they each represent a single syllable. Native Japanese words are written with Hiragana and each of the 46 symbols is a single sound such as 'ta' or 'ne'. If you want to write a word out that is usually represented by a Kanji symbol, you could use Hiragana to do that. Non native, foreign, or borrowed words are written in Katakana such as a Western name or a non-Japanese company or brand name (i.e. 'Google'). Each symbol in Hiragana has an equivalent in Katakana - i.e. there is a symbol for ‘ka’ in both kana sets. When first learning how to write Japanese, the two kana sets can be differentiated by the style in which they are written. Hiragana is generally more curvy and Katakana is more angular.

After learning the kana, it is on to Kanji which is necessary for you to read and know how to write Japanese. The Japanese Kanji were actually adapted and borrowed from the Chinese Kanji characters. There are over 5000 Kanji characters in existence, but to simplify things a bit the Japanese government has created a list of 1945 symbols that are considered essential characters to know. Obviously that is still a big list of symbols to learn, but the average Japanese student doesn't know them all until graduation.

Often times you may not know the Kanji character for a word, but if you know how to write the word in Kana, it will be understood by any Japanese reader. Also when you are first learning and do not know how to write Japanese at all, there is another system called Romaji. Romaji is the ‘Romanization’ of Japanese, or writing it out with the standard 26 letter Latin alphabet. Romaji has become so common that it is actually now taught in Japanese schools. One Romaji example would be writing out the Japanese word for thank you as 'arigato gozaimasu'. This is a great benefit to beginner Japanese language learners, as they need not know written Japanese to start learning how to speak Japanese. For many students, learning written Japanese can become more interesting and fun than speaking the language.

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Visit Japanese Language Now for a collection of resources and tips on how to learn Japanese Kanji.

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