Writing Systems
Here you can find some specific topics on the Japanese language writing system that can assist you.
Discover more about hiragana, katakana and kanji and some other resources that you can watch over and over again.
Discover more about hiragana, katakana and kanji and some other resources that you can watch over and over again.
What are they?
At first, it might seem impossible to consider that you will be writing in a whole new language before too long. Yes you will! Imagine how amazing you will feel knowing that you have mastered the writing system of an entirely different alphabet!
Step one in being able to achieve this is to understand the Japanese writing system.
The writing system can be considered as consisting of three major "alphabets". They are hiragana, katakana and kanji.
Well, technically there is a fourth one called romaji which is using western alphabet to write Japanese words and numbers however let's focus on these three main ones that require you to learn NEW characters.
Step one in being able to achieve this is to understand the Japanese writing system.
The writing system can be considered as consisting of three major "alphabets". They are hiragana, katakana and kanji.
Well, technically there is a fourth one called romaji which is using western alphabet to write Japanese words and numbers however let's focus on these three main ones that require you to learn NEW characters.
Katakana
Katakana is also a phonetic system of characters that represent a single sound, however their purpose is distinctly different from hiragana. Katakana is expressly used to write words of non-Japanese origin. Mostly commonly place names, people's names and objects that originated outside Japan would be written in katakana. These characters can be distinguished as sharp and pointy. There are also 46 katakana characters - one corresponds to each hiragana sound. |
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Kanji
Originating in China and being modified by Japanese over hundreds of years, Kanji are not phonetic one-for-one sounds but instead pictorial representations of whole meanings or whole words. Putting different combinations of these characters together creates new words. These are distinguished by their appearance where different components of characters may be identified. They look more complicated and look like pictures. |
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Songs to Help You
Sing-a-long Time
Here are some songs to help you practice your newly discovered kana (writing).
Play them daily and sing along as a way of becoming more familiar with them. Before you know it, they won't seem strange at all.
Here are some songs to help you practice your newly discovered kana (writing).
Play them daily and sing along as a way of becoming more familiar with them. Before you know it, they won't seem strange at all.
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Visit the Writing Hiragana section to learn more about how to correctly write the hiragana characters.
Learning Tools
Why not play a game of Kana Invaders?! Shoot down the alien kana before they get you but you have to shoot the right ones otherwise they will not disappear.