This is actually phonetic, as hiragana sounds out the word: Kanji are borrowed from Chinese and they’re more complex than hiragana or katakana.įor example, you might know that the Japanese word for “water” is mizu. Which is like 1500 years at least! The Benefits Of Kanji Vs. Those are kanji, and they’ve been intimidating new learners of Japanese for, well, basically as long as they’ve existed. Those are katakana, an alphabet Japanese people use to write down words that aren’t originally Japanese.īut maybe, mixed in with those characters, you spot a big, intimidating blob, like this: 漢字を読めますか You might also see other, similar characters that look a bit chunkier: Those are hiragana, one of the ways that Japanese people write down the sounds of their language. Whenever you look at a Japanese sentence, you probably see a bunch of small, relatively simple characters, like this: Let’s take a closer looker at the three elements of written Japanese and the role of kanji among them. So if you want to read or write in Japanese, you’ll need to learn them! They are a set of written characters that have been adopted from the Chinese writing system and are used together with the native Japanese hiragana and katakana characters to write Japanese. Kanji are one of three elements used in the Japanese writing system.
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If you’re ready to get started, click here for a 7-day FREE trial. With Japanese Uncovered you’ll use my unique StoryLearning® method to learn Japanese naturally through story… not rules. In order to read or write in Japanese you need to know something very important - kanji.īy the way, if you want to learn Japanese fast and have fun while doing it, my top recommendation is Japanese Uncovered which teaches you through StoryLearning®. Maybe you want to write a letter to your new Japanese pen pal. Maybe you’re trying to follow along with your favourite song lyrics, or maybe you found a Japanese book or manga you’re super excited to read. So you’re starting out on your Japanese journey.