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Japanese Alphabet

History of Japanese Characters

The Japanese language has three kinds of characters; hiragana, katakana and kanji.  The Chinese character, kanji, was brought from China.  It is thought to have been introduced around the third or fourth century, although this has not been proved.  Kanji, which is an ideogram character  (to represent meanings), started to be used as a phonogram (to represent sounds) called Manyo-kana.  As kanji became more widely used, it was simplified.  This simplified form became hiragana.  Hiragana has a roundish shape as shown below, and it was considered to be the letters for private use and female use.  

ex.   安→ あ 以→ い  加→ か

Japanese word order and Chinese word order are different.  Small size kanji (kun’ten) were placed next to kanji to indicate the Japanese word order when reading classical Chinese.  Then it was simplified and became katakana.  Many katakana were made from a part of kanji as seen below.  Katakana has rather straight lines.  

ex. 阿 → ア 伊 → イ  加 → カ

How to Use The 3 Kinds Of Character

The three kinds of characters are used in different ways.  Normally katakana is used for loanwords and foreign names like koohii (coffee) or nyuuyooku (New York).  Most content words are written using kanji.  Functional words like desu (to be), particles, and some Japanese origin words like oishii (tasty) are written in hiragana.  All three characters can be used in one sentence like below.

ex.    彼         は           ミラ  ー     さ ん     で す.

       kanji    hiragana  katakana   Hiragana

       He   topic maker  Miller      Mr.          is

        He is Mr. Miller.

Japanese period and comma:  

The Japanese language uses a maru (circle) at the end of sentences and ten (dot) for semantic separation in a sentence.  Traditionally Japanese does not use the question mark “?” for an interrogative sentence.  Unlike English there is no space between words.  Instead a combination of the three kinds of characters can indicate if it is a meaning word, a foreign word, or a functional word. 

明日の朝,                    トムさんに会います。

Tomorrow morning   Tom  Mr. with meet 

“Tomorrow morning, (I) will meet Tom.”

Roma-ji

Roma-ji (romanized Japanese) is used to indicate the pronunciation of hiragana and katakana in this book.  There are two types of roma-ji; Hebon system and Japanese system.  Most are spelled the same, but a few are spelled differently.  Even though they are spelled differently, their pronunciations are the same.  This textbook uses the Hebon system.

Hebon system Japanese system Hebon system Japanese system
shi si sho syo
chi ti ja zya
fu hu ji zi
sha sya ju zyu
shu syu jo zyo

 

Font type:

As in English, Japanese has several font types, some of which are a bit different.  Below are examples.

ex.   き=  さ=  そ=  ふ=  /  ら=  り=  や=

 Stroke end:

 There are three features at the stroke ends of hiragana, katakana, and kanji.  One is tome (stop), the second is hane (jump), and the third is harai (sweep). 

 


tome hane harai

 

 

HIRAGANA CHART

ひらがな

 

Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic script. It represents every sound in the Japanese Language. Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in Hiragana in Hiragana. In Japanese, writing the strokes in correct order and direction is important, especially in Kanji. It also stresses the importance of correctly learning how to pronounce each sound.

     ga

gi

gu

ge

go

     za

ji

zu

ze

zo

     da

ji

zu

de

do

     ba

bi

bu

be

bo

     pa

pi

pu

pe

po

きゃ

kya

きゅ

kyu

きょ

kyo

ぎゃ

gya

ぎゅ

gyu

ぎょ

gyo

にゃ

nya

にゅ

nyu

にょ

nyo

ひゃ

hya

ひゅ

hyu

ひょ

hyo

びゃ

bya

びゅ

byu

びょ

byo

ぴゃ

pya

ぴゅ

pyu

ぴょ

pyo

みゃ

mya

みゅ

myu

みょ

myo

りゃ

rya

りゅ

ryu

りょ

ryo

じゃ

ja

じゅ

ju

じぇ

je

じょ

jo

ちゃ

cha

ちゅ

chu

ちぇ

che

ちょ

cho

しゃ

sha

しゅ

shu

しぇ

she

しょ

sho

KATAKANA CHART

カタカナ

 

Katakana is mainly used to write foreign names and borrowed words from foreign languages. It can also be used to emphasize certain words similar to Italic function.

     ga

gi

gu

ge

go

     za

ji

zu

ze

zo

     da

ji

zu

de

do

     ba

bi

bu

be

bo

     pa

pi

pu

pe

po

キャ

kya

キュ

kyu

キョ

kyo

ギャ

gya

ギュ

gyu

ギョ

gyo

ニャ

nya

ニュ

nyu

ニョ

nyo

ヒャ

hya

ヒュ

hyu

ヒョ

hyo

ビャ

bya

ビュ

byu

ビョ

byo

ピャ

pya

ピュ

pyu

ピョ

pyo

ミャ

mya

ミュ

myu

ミョ

myo

リャ

rya

リュ

ryu

リョ

ryo

ジャ

ja

ジュ

ju

ジェ

je

ジョ

jo

チャ

cha

チュ

chu

チェ

che

チョ

cho

シャ

sha

シュ

shu

シェ

she

ショ

sho

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