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).
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.
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.
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 |