Japanese scripts introduction.

みなさんこんばんは、おげんきですか？

(Good evening everyone, how are you?)

In this post I'm going to give you a basic explanation into Japanese scripts, what they are normally used for and examples.

As you may be aware, Japanese is not written using a latin script alphabet (referred to as romaji). It makes use of Kana and Kanji.

Kana consists of two syllabaries: Hiragana and Katakana.

Hiragana.

Hiragana is a syllabary which is used for:

• writing original Japanese words.
• 振り仮名(furigana)- writing kanji phonetically which is normally used when kanji is unusual or complex and when kanji has multiple meanings.
• grammatical structures for example, particles and verb endings.

It has five main vowel sounds:

• a (pronounced 'ah')
• i (pronounced 'ee')
• u (pronounced 'oo')
• e (pronounced 'eh')
• o (pronounced oh)

Each kana is either a vowel: あ, い, う, え, お (a, i, u, e, o), a consonant which is followed by a vowel: か, き, く, け, こ(ka, ki, ku, ke, ko) or ん (n). There are 46 basic characters in hiragana.

Katakana.

Katakana is a syllabary which is used for:

• writing foreign loan words, for example: ベッドルーム(bedroom).
• onomatopoeia.
• emphasis.

It (as Hiragana) has five main vowel sounds:

• a (pronounced 'ah')
• i (pronounced 'ee')
• u (pronounced 'oo')
• e (pronounced 'eh')
• o (pronounced oh)

Again, each kana is either a vowel: ア, イ, ウ, エ, オ (a, i, u, e, o), a consonant that is followed by a vowel: カ, キ, ク, ケ, コ(ka, ki, ku, ke, ko) or ン (n). There are 46 basic characters in katakana also.

Usually katakana is taught to children before hiragana but some do find hiragana easier to learn.

Kanji

Kanji is a writing system which is used for:

• the stems of verbs and adjectives.
• place names.
• people's names.
• nouns.

There are between 2000 - 3000 kanji which are commonly used in Japan, 教育 kanji are commonly taught in primary schools in Japan, there are 1006 of these kanji and in secondary school, another 1130 are learnt. These allow people to read newspapers and books and usually, all other kanji have 振り仮名(furigana).
All kanji have a 音読み reading and a 訓読み reading which I'll attempt to explain in a later post.

So, there you have it, a basic explanation of the Japanese writing system.
I'll be uploading further posts fully explaining Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji so, watch this space.

ありがとうございます, さよなら。

Beckie

x x x

はじめまして！

はじめまして、私のなまえはBeckieです, どうぞよろしくおねがいします、おなまえは?

Welcome to my little language learning blog: 'comelearnjapanesewithme.blogspot.co.uk'.
As the url suggests...yes I'm a beginner to Japanese and yes...I aim to share my knowledge with you.

I have attempted to learn Japanese for over a year using websites and textbooks however, the problem is that the resources fail to explain verbs, grammar, structures or other important parts of the language in the right way.
I have failed to retain key knowledge due to various commitments but I'm hoping that discussing my learning will help to spur me on to progress while helping others to understand the long, confusing textbook explainations that bore and confuse us to a crazy level.

Obviously, learning a language can be difficult (as I should know, having studied French for seven years and Spanish for four) but if you really want to be fluent then you must put in the effort I guess.

As this is my first post to the blog, it's going to be short and sweet.
I hope to be uploading numerous posts per week on various topics and if you're interested in my blog feel free to follow me along the way, or contact me by email: beckyadlington@hotmail.co.uk. I'd love to hear from you.

どうもありがとうございます、またね。

Beckie ＾＿＾