14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

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Do you want to learn how to write in Japanese, but feel confused or intimidated
by the script?

This post will break it all down for you, in a step-by-step guide to reading and
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How to Write in Japanese – A

The good news is that it isn’t as hard as you think. And I’ve teamed up with my Beginner’s Guide

friend Luca Toma (who’s also a Japanese coach) to bring you this comprehensive 42 Insane Japanese Language
guide to reading and writing Japanese. Learning Hacks!

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Are You Wasting Your Time

Watching Foreign Language

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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide
Movies?
One language, two systems,
three scripts
If you are a complete beginner, Japanese writing may appear just like Chinese.

But if you look at it more carefully you’ll notice that it doesn’t just contain
complex Chinese characters… there are lots of simpler ones too.

Take a look.

それでも、日本人の食生活も急速に変化してきています。ハンバーグやカ
レーライスは子供に人気がありますし、都会では、イタリア料理、東南ア
ジア料理、多国籍料理などを出すエスニック料理店がどんどん増えていま
す。

Nevertheless, the eating habits of Japanese people are also rapidly

changing. Hamburgers and curry rice are popular with children. In cities,
ethnic restaurants serving Italian cuisine, Southeast Asian cuisine and
multi-national cuisine keep increasing more and more.

(Source: “Japan: Then and Now”, 2001, p. 62-63)

As you can see from this sample, within one Japanese text there are actually
three different scripts intertwined. We’ve colour coded them to help you tell
them apart.

(What’s really interesting is the different types of words – parts of speech –

represented by each colour – it tells you a lot about what you use each of the
three scripts for.)

Can you see the contrast between complex characters (orange) and simpler ones
(blue and green)?

The complex characters are called kanji (漢字 lit. Chinese characters) and were
borrowed from Chinese. They are what’s called a ‘logographic system’ in which
each symbol corresponds to a block of meaning (食 ‘to eat’, 南 ‘south’, 国
‘country’).

Each kanji also has its own pronunciation, which has to be learnt – you can’t
“read” an unknown kanji like you could an unknown word in English.

Luckily, the other two sets of characters are simpler!

Those in blue above are called hiragana and those in green are called katakana.
They’re both examples of ‘syllabic systems’, and unlike the kanji, each sound
corresponds to single sound. For example, そ= so, れ= re; イ= i, タ = ta.

Hiragana and katakana are a godsend for Japanese learners because the
pronunciation isn’t a problem. If you see it, you can say it!

So, at this point, you’re probably wondering:

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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

“What’s the point of using three different types of script? How could that have
come about?”

In fact, all these scripts have a very specific role to play in a piece of Japanese
writing, and you’ll find that they all work together in harmony in representing
the Japanese language in a written form.

So let’s check them out in more detail.

First up, the two syllabic systems: hiragana and katakana (known collectively
as kana).

The ‘kana’ – one symbol, one

sound
Both hiragana and katakana have a fixed number of symbols: 46 characters in
each, to be precise.

Each of these corresponds to a combination of the 5 Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e o)

and the 9 consonants (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w).

(Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Hiragana (the blue characters in our sample text) are recognizable for their
roundish shape and you’ll find them being used for three functions in Japanese
writing:

1. Particles (used to indicate the grammatical function of a word)

は wa topic marker

が ga subject marker

を wo direct object marker

2. To change the meaning of verbs, adverbs or adjectives, which generally have a

root written in kanji. (“Inflectional endings”)

急速に kyuusoku ni rapidly

増えています fuete imasu are increasing

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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

3. Native Japanese words not covered by the other two scripts

それでも soredemo nevertheless

どんどん dondon more and more

Katakana (the green characters in our sample text) are recognisable for their
straight lines and sharp corners. They are generally reserved for:

1. Loanwords from other languages. See what you can spot!

ハンバーグ hanbaagu hamburger

カレーライス karee raisu curry rice

エスニック esunikku ethnic

2. Transcribing foreign names

イタリア itaria Italy

アジア ajia Asia

They are also used for emphasis (the equivalent of italics or underlining in
English), and for scientific terms (plants, animals, minerals, etc.).

So where did hiragana and katakana come from?

In fact, they were both derived from kanji which had a particular pronunciation;
Hiragana took from the Chinese cursive script (安 an →あ a), whereas
katakana developed from single components of the regular Chinese script (阿 a
→ア a ).

(Source: Wikipedia Commons)

So that covers the origins the two kana scripts in Japanese, and how we use
them.

Now let’s get on to the fun stuff… kanji!

The kanji – one symbol, one

meaning
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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

Kanji – the most formidable hurdle for learners of Japanese!

We said earlier that kanji is a logographic system, in which each symbol

corresponds to a “block of meaning”.

食 eating

生 life, birth

活 vivid, lively

“Block of meaning” is the best phrase, because one kanji is not necessarily a
“word” on its own.

You might have to combine one kanji with another in order to make an actual
word, and also to express more complex concepts:

生 + 活 = 生活 lifestyle

食 + 生活 = 食生活 eating habits

If that sounds complicated, remember that you see the same principle in other
languages.

Think about the word ‘telephone’ in English – you can break it down into two
main components derived from Greek:

‘tele’ (far) + ‘phone’ (sound) = telephone

Neither of them are words in their own right.

So there are lots and lots of kanji, but in order to make more sense of them we
can start by categorising them.

There are several categories of kanji, starting with the ‘pictographs’ (象形文字
shōkei moji), which look like the objects they represent:

(Source: Wikipedia Commons)

In fact, there aren’t too many of these pictographs.

Around 90% of the kanji in fact come from six other categories, in which several
basic elements (called ‘radicals’) are combined to form new concepts.
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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

For example:

人 (‘man’ as a radical) + 木 (‘tree’) = 休 (‘to rest’)

These are known as 形声文字 keisei moji or ‘radical-phonetic compounds’.

You can think of these characters as being made up of two parts:

1. A radical that tells you what category of word it is: animals, plants, metals,
etc.)
2. A second component that completes the character and give it its
pronunciation (a sort of Japanese approximation from Chinese).

So that’s the story behind the kanji, but what are they used for in Japanese
writing?

Typically, they are used to represent concrete concepts.

When you look at a piece of Japanese writing, you’ll see kanji being used for
nouns, and in the stem of verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Here are some of them from our sample text at the start of the article:

日本人 Japanese people

多国籍料理 multinational cuisine
東南 Southeast

Now, here’s the big question!

Once you’ve learnt to read or write a kanji, how do you pronounce it?

If you took the character from the original Chinese, it would usually only have
one pronunciation.

However, by the time these characters leave China and reach Japan, they usually
have two or sometimes even more pronunciations.

Aggh!

How or why does this happen?

Let’s look at an example.

To say ‘mountain’, the Chinese use the pictograph 山 which depicts a mountain
with three peaks. The pronunciation of this character in Chinese is shān (in the
first tone).

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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

Now, in Japanese the word for ‘mountain’ is ‘yama’.

So in this case, the Japanese decided to borrow the character山from Chinese,

but to pronounce it differently: yama.

However, this isn’t the end of the story!

The Japanese did decide to borrow the pronunciation from the original Chinese,
but only to use it when that character is used in compound words.

So, in this case, when the character 山 is part of a compound word, it is

pronounced as san/zan – clearly an approximation to the original
Chinese pronunciation.

Here’s the kanji on its own:

山は… Yama wa… The mountain….

And here’s the kanji when it appears in compound words:

火山は… Kazan wa The volcano…

富士山は… Fujisan wa… Mount Fuji….

To recap, every kanji has at least two pronunciations.

The first one (the so-called訓読み kun’yomi or ‘meaning reading’) has an

original Japanese pronunciation, and is used with one kanji on it’s own.

The second one (called音読み on’yomi or ‘sound-based reading’) is used in

compound words, and comes from the original Chinese.

Makes sense, right?

In Japan, there’s an official number of kanji that are classified for “daily use” (常
用漢字joyō kanji) by the Japanese Ministry of Education – currently 2,136.

(Although remember that the number of actual words that you can form using
these characters is much higher.)

So now… if you wanted to actually learn all these kanji, how should you go about
it?

To answer this question, Luca’s going to give us an insight into how he did it.

How I learnt kanji

I started to learn kanji more than 10 years ago at a time when you couldn’t find
all the great resources that are available nowadays. I only had paper kanji
dictionary and simple lists from my textbook.

What I did have, however, was the memory of a fantastic teacher.

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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

I studied Chinese for two years in college, and this teacher taught us characters
in two helpful ways:

1. He would analyse them in terms of their radicals and other components

2. He kept us motivated and interested in the process by using fascinating
stories based on etymology (the origin of the characters)

Once I’d learnt to recognise the 214 radicals which make up all characters – the
building blocks of Chinese characters – it was then much easier to go on and
learn the characters and the words themselves.

It’s back to the earlier analogy of dividing the word ‘telephone’ into tele and
phone.

But here’s the thing – knowing the characters alone isn’t enough. There are too
many, and they’re all very similar to one another.

If you want to get really good at the language, and really know how to read and
how to write in Japanese, you need a higher-order strategy.

The number one strategy that I used to reach a near-native ability in reading and
writing in Japanese was to learn the kanji within the context of dialogues
or other texts.

I never studied them as individual characters or words.

Now, I could give you a few dozen ninja tricks for how to learn Japanese kanji,
but the one secret that blows everything else out of the water and guarantees real
success in the long-term, is extensive reading and massive exposure.

Now, clearly this takes time and it’s not a quick-fix. For a detailed explanation of
how to do this in practice, see this post.

In the meantime, there are a lot of resources both online and offline to learn
kanji, each of which is based on a particular method or approach (from
flashcards to mnemonic and so on).

The decision of which approach to use can be made easier by understanding the
way you learn best.

Do you have a photographic memory or prefer working with images? Do you

prefer to listen to audio? Or perhaps you prefer to write things by hands?

You can and should try more than one method, in order to figure out which
works best for you.

(Note: You should get a copy of this excellent guide by John Fotheringham,
which has all the resources you’ll ever need to learn kanji)

Summary of how to write in

Japanese
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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

So you’ve made it to the end!

See – I told you it wasn’t that bad! J Let’s recap what we’ve covered.

Ordinary written Japanese employs a mixture of three scripts:

Kanji, or Chinese characters, of which there are officially 2,136 in daily use
(more in practice)

2 syllabic alphabets called hiragana and katakana, containing 42 symbols

each

In special cases, such as children’s books or simplified materials for language

learners, you might find everything written using only hiragana or katakana.

But apart from those materials, everything in Japanese is written by employing

the three scripts together, and it’s the kanji which represent the cultural and
linguistic challenge in the Japanese language.

If you want to become proficient in Japanese you have to learn all three!

Although it seems like a daunting task, remember that there are many people
before you who have found themselves right at the beginning of their journey
in learning Japanese.

And every journey begins with a single step.

So what are you waiting for?

–––

It’s been a pleasure for me to work on this article with Luca Toma, and I’ve
learnt a lot in the process.

Now he didn’t ask me to write this, but if you’re serious about learning Japanese,
you should consider hiring Luca as a coach. The reasons are many, and you can
find out more on his website: JapaneseCoaching.net

–––

Do you know anyone learning Japanese? Why not send them this
article, or click here to send a tweet.

Leave your comments and questions below and myself and Luca will
get back to you!

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Mika-chan • 3 months ago

very inspiring article. but when you learn japanese do you need to know only
the kanji not the other two, or just start with kanji and then the other two. i
dont know anything in japanese but i want to learn how to write and read
and speak. but dont know where to start...
6△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Omega Dark Mage > Mika-chan • 3 months ago

Start with the other the other two since you can at least write words
with the other 2 scripts plus they are way easier to learn, think of
those as your training wheels for writing until you learn some Kanji.
After you learn some Kanji you can mix those in to your writing which
shortens the amount of characters that you will use. Many words
would require multiple hiragana and katakana characters to make
while a single Kanji can get the same meaning across.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

CrowSenji • 4 months ago

Very sexy choice of color coding, as what I do with most articles, I just skim
through it, but the colors captivated me and inspired in me to use the same
colors on my flashcards. Thanks!
1△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > CrowSenji • 4 months ago

Aha, great! Glad you liked it!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

sara sara • a month ago

Very good article thank you.
R l
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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Corn Ji • 6 months ago

very useful article
thank you:)
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > Corn Ji • 4 months ago

You're welcome! Are you learning Japanese?
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

dendee pudge • 7 months ago

Whenever you write japanese is kanji always present ??
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > dendee pudge • 7 months ago

Yes, almost always. The majority of nouns, adjectives, verbs etc in
words in Japanese are symbolised with a Chinese character (kanji).
1△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Sera • 8 months ago

RIP Kanji. Will I be ok with just by learning Hiragana and Katakana only? I
think Kanji is beyond my powers anymore.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > Sera • 7 months ago

Slowly but surely!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Joseph M Cutcher III • 9 months ago

threee scripts? that's like writing a paragraph in print, cursive, and
something else just because you like confusing people!

why don't they just make or pick one?

△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > Joseph M Cutcher III • 9 months ago

Haha, I'll pass that on to the Japanese nation...
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

fadz ak47 • 2 years ago

so hard to write in chinese or japanese :(
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > fadz ak47 • a year ago

Slowly, but surely. You'll get there.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

woodiesvk • 2 years ago

please fix:
ハンバーグ is a type of steak
ハンバーガー is hamburger
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Cyrus Argo • 2 years ago

Hey I'm literally just starting and I want to learn how to read and write in
Japanese any tips of how to do this
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > Cyrus Argo • 2 years ago

Hi Cyrus. I'd recommend you start with Hiragana and Katakana.

Don't worry about kanji just yet. If you work hard, you should be able
to learn the characters in a few days - start writing them out over and
over, and try to create some mnemonics to remember what each
character sounds like. They're not that complex, and there's lots of
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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide
c a acte sou ds e. ey e ot t at co p e , a d t e e s ots o
similarity between the two alphabets.
2△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Cyrus Argo > Olly Richards • 2 years ago

I really appreciate it do you know of any good sites I might be
able to learn hiragana and katakana from.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Nicolas Marcora > Cyrus Argo • a year ago

I know your post is 8 months old as I write this, but in
case you still haven't found a good site, or for anyone
else reading this, I've just started my journey towards
learning Hiragana and Katakana and I found Chihiro's
lessons on youtube to be really clear and easy to follow.

Learn Hiragana - Kantan Kana Lesson 1 …

△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > Cyrus Argo • 2 years ago

I don't know myself, I'm afraid, because I didn't use
websites to learn to read and write. Maybe someone
else could recommend something?
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

The_L1985 > Olly Richards • 4 months ago

There are a TON of worksheets out there for Japanese
kids (because after all, they had to learn the kana and
kanji too) if you know where to look. :)
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

The Mellifluous • 3 years ago

Very useful article :D thanks for sharing!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Olly Richards Mod > The Mellifluous • 2 years ago

You're welcome!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

ToGusDS • 3 years ago

i'm just starting to learn some kanjis I already know the radicals but the
readings are kind of complicated, any advice?
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Luca Toma > ToGusDS • 3 years ago

You will pick them up as you learn vocabulary. So, I recommend to
not study them individually, but in context (as parts of kanji words in
the texts you read). Moreover - as we say in the post - most of the
kanji are 'radical-phonetic compounds'. This means that apart from
the radical (which is related to meaning), the rest gives the
pronunciation (ON-reading) which is usually the same for all of the
kanji with that particular component. Example: 青 SEI (blue); 申請
shin-SEI (request); 精神 SEI-shin (spirit); 晴天 SEI-ten (blue sky)...
So 青 請 精 晴 are all pronounced SEI, although they have different
radicals (and thus meanings). You will start recognizing these
components with practice. They are also limited in number!
42 △ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

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14/12/2017 How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide

ToGusDS > Luca Toma • 2 years ago

So, "extensive reading and massive exposure" how can do
that? So far I can recognize some kanjis like man, and woman,
forest, fire, rain some verbs like eat, rest, and so on, is there
any web site to get this exposure? I just have found some sites,
but they're using kanjis that I have'nt seen before :p and it's
really frustrating to just look and them and knowing nothing
about those pics :p

Thanks in advance
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Israel Lai • 3 years ago

Excellent explanation of the two types of yomi. I had to figure that out
myself!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Luca Toma > Israel Lai • 3 years ago

I'm glad you found it useful, Israel Lai :)
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

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