Hey Everyone!, in this section, I’ll give you some japanese lessons. But, I would like to precise that I’m not a advanced speaker, I’m learning myself. So please be indulgent.
So Let’s start!
First you need to know is about the japanese way of writing. They’re 3 types of writing :
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1 – Hiragana
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2- Katana
- 3 – Kanji
HIRAGANA
Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic alphabet. It represents every sound in the Japanese language. Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in hiragana. However, because Japanese is written with no spaces, this will create nearly indecipherable text. There are 46 hiragana symbols in Japanese, each with a particular sound but with no independent meaning.
KATAKANA
Katakana, like hiragana, is a phonetic script much like English where each character has a unique sound and the characters can be written one after the next to spell out a word. Learning katakana is usually the second step in learning how to read and write Japanese – hiragana is usually taught first. Katakana is used to represent foreign words which have been adopted into the Japanese language (loan words) and foreign names (personal and country names).
What you need to know is that:
- We only use them to translate word from foreign languages, for example the name of a country or a city, will be write in KATAKANA and no in HIRAGANA
- Every Katakana syllable has its Hiragana equivalent.
- As you maybe already noticed, Hiragana and Katana are not composed of letters as in english or in French (a, b, c, d, e …), they’re composed of syllables (ka, ki, ku, ke,ko…) The only single letters are a, i, u, e, o / あいうえおのうた.
KANJI
Kanji is the most difficult system of writing, I swear. And I’m sure everybody knows that. Kanji means litteraly Chinese letter or character. The script was invented by the Chinese and adopted by the Japanese around the middle of the 6th century AD. Kanji are symbols meaning words. You need to know 2000 before reading a newspaper. Japanese Children learn approximately 1000 kanji in pre-school.
FYI
An authoritative classic, the Kāngxī dictionary, lists over 47,000 characters. The Hanyu Da Zidian, a more modern reference, has over 54,000 characters; the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, the Japanese equivalent, has over 50,000. Even more recently, the Zhōnghuá Zìhǎi has over 85,000 characters, but apparently many of those are variants. Of course, such counting is more-or-less academic. In Japan, there are only 2,136 Jōyō kanji (lit. commonly-used kanji), which are the ones taught in school, though literate people usually know more.
Of course, such counting is more-or-less academic. In Japan, there are only 2,136 Jōyō kanji (lit. commonly-used kanji), which are the ones taught in school, though literate people usually know more.
Be careful, only one line can change the signification of the word!
That’s all for my first lesson! I hope you learned something today!
My assignment for you is to try to learn 5 hiragana and 5 katana, everyday, you’ll see how easy it is. For helping you here is my tip, I have found this app, years ago, its called Nihongo no Kana, and its available on App Store. Sorry for Androids users, I’ll find another app for you.
App store link: Nihongo no Kana
Maybe I’ll write an article about that.. I don’t know ^^
Jaa neじゃあね – See you!
A Japan Addict 