A look at the Japanese writing system

[Ropponmatsu]

Welcome to my article about the written Japanese language! (^_^)/
Here I will explain how this confusing writing system works in practice.
I hope people who are learning Japanese, or just feel interested, will find this article interesting!

Questions are encouraged!

Also, english in not my mother's tongue, so pardon me if there are any strange expressions differing from what you guys see at school... fO.o
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Introduction

The Japanese language uses one of the most complex writing systems of the modern day languages seen around the world. The reason for this, is the fact that it uses 2 different ‘alphabets’ called kana (I will refer to them as such from here on) of 46 ‘letters’ each, as well as a very large amount of Chinese characters called kanji (I will also refer to them as such from here on).
This may seem like an unnecessarily complicated system, but it is the path that the Japanese language has ultimately chosen after a long history of revisions, and in my own opinion, even as a non-Japanese, it works very well both in thought and practice.

In this ‘article’, I will explain the basics of the Japanese writing system, such as what each of the two sets of kana are used for, as well as how kanji are used. In addition, I will start with a small section about how you read Japanese.

As I’m sure many of you who read this already know (given the nature of this forum), Japanese can be written and read in two ways; horizontally and vertically.
When it is written horizontally, it is read from left to right, top to bottom, just like English. This way of writing is mostly used in documents, signs, on the internet etc.

[IMG:907:502:91ff425bfb]http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee140/cracker0254/Horizxmpl.jpg[/img:91ff425bfb]

When written vertically, as it is traditionally, you read it from top to bottom, right to left. In my example, you would read with the line marked by {1}, then go on to the actual text, starting with the one marked {2}, continue all the way down to {3}, and then move on to the next line, {4}.

[IMG:402:854:91ff425bfb]http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee140/cracker0254/Vertxmpl.jpg[/img:91ff425bfb]

This is the most common way to read Japanese in books, newspapers, manga etc.
Another important thing to notice, is that there are no spaces between words in Japanese, which may be very confusing at first, however it becomes a negligible problem when you get used to the language.

Now let’s move on to kana! \(^_^)/
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[Ropponmatsu]

Hiragana

As hiragana is the generally the first set of kana you will learn, I will also start with the section about hiragana.

Origin: When the Japanese written language was still in it’s cradle, it was written using Chinese characters. Hiragana evolved from these Chinese characters when written in a quick, flowing way, in a similar way to handwriting of roman letters, and eventually became it’s own separate set of characters.

[IMG:244:53:b8aa5b0c07]http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee140/cracker0254/Hiraevo.jpg[/img:b8aa5b0c07]

Overview of all 46 characters in hiragana:

[IMG:783:537:b8aa5b0c07]http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee140/cracker0254/Hiragana.jpg[/img:b8aa5b0c07]

The entire Japanese language is based on syllables, which is easy to see here. All sounds in the Japanese language are represented in hiragana, either as stand alone characters, or through combinations, or by adding small sound change markers, which I’ll get back to further down. Note that all Japanese sounds are a full syllable, e.g. �{a} and ん{n} are syllables, just as much as �{shi} is one.

Long vowel sounds, such as in ã?„ã?„ã?ˆ – {iie} – [no, not at all], are as you can see, written by adding either ã?‚, ã?„, ã?†, ã?ˆ or ã?Š to prolong the vowel sound they each represent. Example 2: ã?†ã?¤ã??ã?—ã?„ – {u tsu ku shi i – usukushii} – [beautiful], here ã?— is prolonged in the same way. The only exception to this rule, it the {o} sound, which is prolonged by adding ã?† – {u} (this is the reason why ‘good morning’ is transcribed as ‘ohayou’ and not ‘ohayoo’).

Double consonants are written by adding a small ã?¤ – {tsu} in front of the consonant you wish to make double, e.g. ã?„ã?£ã?¦ã??ã?¾ã?™ – {i tte ki ma su – ittekimasu} – [I’ll be going (and come back)]. The only exception to this rule is double {n}, which is written by adding ã‚“ before the {n} consonant you wish to make double.

Now it’s time to explain about sound change markers (I don’t know if this is and official name for them, however, they change the sound of a kana, and thus, I’ll refer to it by this name). There are two sound change markers, ゛called {tenten} – [dot, dot] and ゜called {maru} – [circle]. When added to a kana (both hiragana and katakana) they change the sound of that particular kana, to make a new sound. Example: � → � – {ka}→{ga}.

K → G
S → Z
T → D
H → B

And ゜is only used to turn H → P.

Now we’ve come to combinations of hiragana, which is another way to make new sounds from hiragana. Using these combinations, you can write the sounds transcribed as {nya}, {kyo}, {hyu} etc. The principle for this is very simple; for example, if I want to write {nya}, I do it by using {ni} and {ya}, where {ya} is made smaller, to signify that it is used to modify the previous kana: �ゃ. The principle works the same way with all [consonant]+y+[vowel] sounds; use the {i} version of the syllable which has the consonant you wish to use, and then add either a small {ya}, {yu} or {yo}. There are no exceptions to this rule, however there is no way for writing {nyi} or {nye} (Example. Goes for all consonants, not just {n}), however there is no need to, as these sounds are not in the Japanese language.

Now on to the use of hiragana!

Hiragana is the most frequently used of hiragana and katakana. It is used for particles (� – {ga} – marks the subject of the sentence), conjugations (言�� – {imasu} – [is saying]) and for writing common words, where kanji are not needed to understand
(��よ� – {ohayou} – [good morning]).

Another common use for hiragana is if you forget, or don’t know the kanji for a word, you can use hiragana instead. This is common with advanced kanji, or kanji that are not used often.

It is also fully possible to write entirely in hiragana, however, as there are no spaces between words in Japanese, it would become very hard to read easily. Many children’s books and manga meant for a younger audience only use hiragana, but does add spaces in between the words.

That’s the basics of hiragana! (ノ^_^)ノ～万歳! – {Banzai!}
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[Ropponmatsu]

Katakana

Now then, let’s move on to katakana!

Origin: Katakana came to be by breaking off parts of Chinese characters. As seen in the example below, テ came to be by breaking off a part of 天.

[IMG:75:74:b511da5394]http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee140/cracker0254/Kataevo.jpg[/img:b511da5394]

Overview of all 46 characters in katakana:

[IMG:768:535:b511da5394]http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee140/cracker0254/Katakana.jpg[/img:b511da5394]

As you can see, katakana contains the same amount of characters, as well as the same characters.

When writing, all the rules that apply to hiragana, also apply in the exact same way to katakana, with one exception; long vowel sounds in katakana are made by addingー after the vowel you wish to prolong, instead of another kana, e.g. ロ�ート – {robaato} – [Robert]. Of course, you use katakana to write a word, you only use katakana in that word, e.g. if you write a word with double consonants, you use the {tsu} from katakana, not hiragana. The same naturally goes for when writing hiragana.

Now then., what is the use of another set of kana that has the same sounds, the same rules for writing, and the only noticeable difference is that they look different?

Actually, katakana has a number of uses. One of these uses is for loan words from other languages, such as ケーキ – {keeki} – [cake], as well as for foreign names, as the example with ‘Robert’ above.

Another use is to write names of places and people in katakana. E.g. 花林 → カリン – {Karin} – common girl’s name. You may have noted that Naruto’s name is always written in katakana. One of the main reasons for writing your name in katakana is that you don’t like the meaning of the kanji in your name, such as Tatsuki in Bleach, whose profile says that she makes a point not to write her name in kanji, as it isn’t ‘cute’ (tatsu means dragon, making her name sound boyish).

Yet another use of katakana, is to add stress to a special word in a sentence, or a stand alone word such as an interjection, or curses for that matter. E.g. ��ズット… - {watashi ga zutto…} – [I was always…], オイ! – {oi!} – [hey!], テメ! – {teme!} – [bastard!].
Also, katakana is often used to write slang.

By now you should be realizing that despite there being no spaces in between words, it does not look the same all over the paper. (^.^;)

And with that, we are done with katakana! (^_^)b
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[Ropponmatsu]

Kanji
愛 悪 四 � 寺 時
七 å?? 出 å°? 上 å ´
心 人 事 風 分 文

The Japanese language contains a grand total of around 10 000 kanji, however most of these are rarely or never used in daily life (some of them are used in traditional literature and in academic contexts such a medicine). It is said that you need to know the 2000 most common kanji to be able to confidently read a Japanese newspaper.

Throughout elementary school, Japanese children learn 1006 kanji, called ‘kyouiku kanji’. These kanji are the ones most central to managing everyday life in Japan. In high school, they learn yet another 939 kanji, bringing it the total number of kanji learned through the school years to 1945 kanji, which are called the ‘jouyou kanji’.

On a side note, the hardest kanji test you can undertake in Japan, consists of around 6500 kanji, and very few people ever pass this test.

Origin: Kanji is the Japanese name for Chinese characters. The Chinese characters first came to Japan around 400 a.d. through Buddhist monks who had studied in China, and brought Buddhist sutras written in Chinese back to Japan. The Japanese language at the time had no writing system, and over the passing of years, started to use Chinese to write official documents and the like, and in time, started to use Chinese characters for their sound value in order to write Japanese words, e.g. 風would have been used for the sound ‘fuu’, without the meaning of wind. In other words, it was used much to the same way as hiragana and katakana; as a set of syllables to write in Japanese.

Over the many years that passed, the Japanese developed new pronunciations for the original Chinese characters, and thus began to use them both for sound and meaning, where we are today, where we have 2 ways to read a kanji: on-yomi, and kun-yomi, where on-yomi means Chinese-Japanese reading (a pronunciation based on Chinese, but adapted to the Japanese language), and where kun-yomi is a completely Japanese way of pronouncing the kanji.

The aspect on on-yomi and kun-yomi is central to the written Japanese language. You must be know the several ways to read a kanji to be able to read Japanese. As an example to illustrate this, I will use the kanji 山 which means mountain. In the word富士山 – {fujisan} – [Mount Fuji], the kanji is read as {san}, whereas in the word �山 – {koyama} – [hill], it is read as {yama}, the first being on-yomi, and the latter being kun-yomi.

Now you wonder what the point of THIS set of characters is good for. There is an incomprehensible number of them, some of them are ridiculously complicated and to top it of there are several ways to read each and every one of them!

Well, all of this is of course true, however, the use of kanji has a few important aspects of written Japanese. One being the simple fact that they add meaning to a word. E.g. the word {kaeru} has a number of meanings, [return], [restore], [change], [replace] among others. Now these are all written with different kanji, which helps you identify the meaning of the word. This is actually a very important aspect to the kanji, as the Japanese language has many words that sound much alike, and this helps you differentiate between them in a written text, where context doesn’t always give away the meaning.

Another aspect that is important to the Japanese people, and not the language itself, is the artistic aspect of kanji. I believe that most people share my opinion that Japanese is an extraordinarily beautiful language when written (and in my opinion, also when spoken), and the Japanese feel the same way about their language, and they have always been very proud of their language. This is one of the main reasons that the use of kanji has survived through the years, through the suggestions of abolishing them in favor of kana, through suggestions of making English the official language of Japan.

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To wrap things up then~

First, and example of a sentence containing hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
Transcribation: Bold is kanji, italic is hiragana, underlined is katakana.

ç§?ã?¯å–«èŒ¶åº—ã?«è¡Œã??ã?¾ã?—ã?Ÿã?§ã‚±ãƒ¼ã‚­ã‚’è²·ã?„ã?¾ã?—ã?Ÿã€‚

{Watashi ha kissaten ni ikimashita de keeki wo kaimashita.}

[I went to the coffee shop and bought a cake.]

And that’s the end of it! It was fun writing this as the Japanese language is my greatest interest. ^_^

If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to try and answer them!

六本�
{Ropponmatsu}
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[Cherry-Kun]

uwooooooo!!!!

awesome!!!

i'll take my time to read your post........but just one thing, dont make multiple posts when you can edit your first one kay?

i wanted to learn all of that stuff a long time a go.........but i was lazy to look for it on the net xD
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[Harutard]

looks good roppo-kun^^

hmm i think i will read it instead of work today XD

äh i have a question...since i got it wrong already 2 or 3 times, i have to ask....are you male or female Oo
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Afterall, the fate of the world rests on my pitching....the world sure isn't worth much these days.

[Ropponmatsu]

[Harutard]

shit...the pc on my workplace doesn't have the japanese-text-set installed...
i'll have to wait till i am home to read the important stuff :/
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[IMG:338:120:3d94243a9b]http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/6072/70939132oo8.png[/img:3d94243a9b]
Afterall, the fate of the world rests on my pitching....the world sure isn't worth much these days.

[Kimmie-chan]

Wow~ that was a good read, you must spent a bit of time putting that all together.

I agree Japanese language is very interesting. So you can speak and read it pretty fluently? ... >.< I'm sooo jealous.

And just a little quesition aren't the little " in the name changers called 'chon chon' and the circles 'pyon pyon'? That was just what I learnt during school ... [/i]
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[Ropponmatsu]

[ultimasome]

Nice work Roppo ^^-b
Japanese is an intersting language but I rather speak instead of writing. Its difficult >__<

[07cbdj]

It was very interesting. Great job!
I like the language, too, and it would be nice to speak and write Japanese. But the thing is I study medicine (and Latin) now. I barely have time to check the forums.
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Dv

[Angel_Armz]

[Ropponmatsu]

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