Learn Japanese Characters

If you are studying Japanese, sooner or later, you will have to sit down and learn Japanese characters if you ever plan on being able to read or write effectively. This is often the most intimidating part of learning Japanese that westerners face. If you are accustomed to the traditional Roman alphabet that European-based languages use, it can be challenging to learn an entirely new set of characters and become skilled at reading and writing them.

Discover How to Write Japanese Easily

In order to make the writing system easier to understand, it is helpful to break it down into smaller chunks. There are two basic types of characters, Kana and Kanji. When most people are beginning to learn Japanese characters, it is often easier to start with Kana.

Kana – Kana characters each represent a certain syllable. In and of themselves each character is meaningless, just like the letter “C” doesn’t mean anything in English. However, when combined these characters can form words and sentences, just like “Coffee” is a combination of C-o-f-f-e-e. Again though, these characters represent whole syllables, not what English-speakers would think of as letters. For example, they character “か” represents the syllable “ka.”

There are two different subsets of Kana characters, Hiragana and Katakana. Both Hiragana and Katakana consist of the same syllables and sounds, but Hiragana characters are used in different circumstances than Katakana characters. This may seem confusing. Try to think of it like the difference between print and cursive writing. In English, both have the exact same letters, but cursive letters look different from print letters. Such is the case with Hiragana and Katakana characters.

Hiragana – Hiragana characters tend to look rounder and more flowing. These characters are used for write words and names that are native to the Japanese language. Typically, you will learn Hiragana first when you are beginning to learn Japanese characters.
Katakana – Katakana characters tend to look more angular and sharp compared to Hiragana characters. Katakana is used to write borrowed words and names that are not native to the Japanese language, as well as sounds. If you do not have a Japanese name, you will write your name in Katakana characters. The Japanese language tends to borrow many words from other languages (especially English), so if you do nothing else besides learn Katakana, you can read a few of the signs that you might see in Japan by phonetically sounding out the words.

Kanji – People tend to start getting overwhelmed when they get to the point that they learn Kanji. Kanji, tend to look much more complex than Haragana or Katakana characters. Kanji are literally Chinese characters that have been incorporated into the Japanese language. There are 1,945 different Kanji characters that the Japanese Ministry of Education assumes the general Japanese population to understand. When you learn Japanese characters, most of your efforts will probably go into learning Kanji. This will take a while, but the best way to do it is to just take a few at a time and start to memorize them.

Additionally, the Japanese language also sometimes uses the Roman alphabet that you are familiar with to write words. This is referred to as Romaji, and is probably good enough when you are first getting started. However, after you learn Romaji, you will need to learn Japanese characters like the Kana and Kanji if you want to be able to truly understand and read Japanese.

Discover How to Write Japanese Easily

Do You Want an Easy Method to Memorize All the Japanese Characters?

The Kana and Kanji flashcards from White Rabbit Press make learning Japanese characters a breeze. You’ll be able to master Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji in no time!

To get your hands of a set of these flashcards, click here.